


Brideprice

by 27dragons



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Arranged Marriage, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Pining, Sex, everyone's a mutant, the x-men are just more hardcore about it, tribal warfare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-24 15:28:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: An event known only as the Sundering destroyed civilization as it had been known. Now, several hundred years later, humans have banded together in tribes that war over resources and scramble for ways to deal with the occasionally-deadly mutations that the Sundering left in its wake.The Avengers thought they would be the next victims of the Hydra tribe’s steady expansion and subjugation, but instead, Hydra approached them with an offer of alliance, including a bride for Tony, the Avengers’ second-in-command, to symbolize the union of the two tribes. But neither Tony’s bride nor the alliance turn out to be what the Avengers were hoping for.





	1. The Betrothal

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2017 Winteriron Bang, and the amazing [RsCreighton](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rscreighton) turned this into a podfic (with cover art by [annapods](http://archiveofourown.org/users/annapods))! If you prefer to listen to stories, find the podfic [HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12051543).

Tony was close on Steve’s heels as they strode into the mess hall. Jan leapt to her feet to salute, but Steve waved her down, and she collapsed gracelessly back onto the bench. “Anything an emergency?” Steve asked.

She shook her head. “No, Captain.”

“Then rest, catch your breath,” Steve said. He straddled the bench across from her and folded his arms, waiting.

Tony had been Steve’s second-in-command for several years now, but neither Steve nor he cared much for titles, and formality didn’t sit well with most Avengers. He perched on the edge of the table, too restless to sit. He’d half worried that she wouldn’t return at all, but since she had, then the small package strapped to her thigh where her knife sheath usually sat would change all their lives.

Peggy came in with a bowl of broth -- she must have seen Jan come in before word had even reached Steve and Tony, and known they would meet her in the mess. Peggy and Steve operated so smoothly together that sometimes Tony wondered if they had a telepathic bond. Jan took the broth gratefully and drank in thirsty gulps. “They honored the truce,” she panted when it was empty. “Obviously, since I’m not dead.”

Steve grunted. He wasn’t entirely happy about the new truce with the tribe to their east -- none of the Avengers were. Too much blood had been spilled between them for that. But the river that sustained the Avengers was drying, slowly but steadily, its banks receding a little further each year. That was old news; the tribe had been searching for a solution to the problem since Tony’s father had been a member of the Chief’s Council. The Avengers’ thirst for vengeance would soon be outweighed by the thirst in their throats, and Hydra had offered them access to one of their several abundant rivers. “And?”

“They offer a bride, Captain,” Jan reported. “To seal the alliance.”

“That’s a bit surprising,” Steve said. “I’d have thought they’d want an exchange, at minimum.”

“They have more people,” Jan said. That was an understatement; Hydra outnumbered the Avengers nearly five to one. “And our top candidates are all men, whereas theirs are mixed -- you know how Hydra is about marriage.” She grimaced, as well she might; the Hydra tribe had some pretty distasteful traditions, including a dictate that marriage was solely for the purpose of procreation.

“They’re liars and cheats,” Peggy put in, sliding her arm around Steve’s shoulders. “They’ll send us a woman past her bearing, or some poor wretch they dragged out of the Sundered Lands, and spring a trap on us at the wedding.”

Jan unfastened the package on her thigh and offered it to Tony. “They sent blood, fresh-drawn, to test.”

Tony unwrapped the protective layers and found a glass vial, wax-stopped, full of blood so dark it was nearly black. His heart jumped in his chest, the traitor. However much he tried, he couldn’t seem to shake the hope that some day, he might find a match. “I’ll take this to Bruce,” he said, “and report back. But you might as well go ahead and have the top three candidates report for compatibility testing.”

Once, according to legend, anyone could love as they wished. But since the Sundering, a dozen generations gone, things were not so simple. The mutations the Sundering had caused warred with each other. At best, incompatible mutations rendered a couple sterile. At worst... Tony had still been a student when a pair of incompatible but determined lovers defied the Compact and joined anyway. Their combined genetic material had evaporated into a toxic gas within hours of their lovemaking, killing them both in their sleep. It had taken the Purifiers three days to ensure no trace of it remained.

Tony had heard about it from Bruce, whom the Purifiers had consulted on the best way to neutralize the toxin. When he’d told his father the tale, Howard had merely grunted. “It happens every generation,” he’d said. “There’s always someone who thinks that love is more powerful than science. They always find out wrong.”

Steve was nodding. “I’ll have Clint and Sam report before dinner call,” he promised. “But don’t forget, you’re the top of the list.”

“How could I?” Tony said. He was the oldest and highest-ranked of the unmarried men; top of not one but two lists. He’d been in the candidate lists for most of a decade, but so far had failed to qualify in any of the tests. He’d long since concluded that his mutations were particularly virulent and unlikely ever to successfully match, and consoled himself with lovers whose match results were benign failures. By the Covenants of the Tribes and the Avengers’ own laws, Tony could have married a lover with whom he would have been sterile, but that would have deprived them -- and him -- of the promise of a family. That distant hope had never quite been quashed in Tony; he wasn’t about to take it away from anyone else.

He pushed his irrelevant dreams aside, and gave Steve a parting wave. “I’ll have the results to you after dinner,” he promised.

***

The Avengers lived in a compound that had probably been a large farm or a ranch back before the Sundering. It was the size of a small town, now. The buildings had all been stripped down and rebuilt with an eye to fortification and tribal life, with small rooms for sleeping and wide community areas. They’d erected fortifications against raiders and towers for lookouts. There was a training ground for the warriors and a library in the school to maintain their precious collection of knowledge. Tony’s father had built a workshop of sorts behind the smithy, and Tony had expanded it.

School was long out for the day, but a small figure emerged from the library as Tony passed. “Tony! Tony, hi!”

Harley. Tony suppressed a smile. The boy was young, but already determined to apprentice to the smithy and, from there, earn a place as one of the few allowed into the Tony’s workshop with its precious store of pre-Sundering tech. Tony rather thought he’d manage it; he spent all his spare time in the library. But he couldn’t make promises when Harley still had more than half a decade of schooling before he could choose a trade. “Harley. Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to be?”

“No, not really!” Harley said, not deterred in the slightest. He skipped into step beside Tony. “Where ya goin’?”

“Chemistry lab,” Tony said. “And I’m sure your mother wouldn’t thank me for taking you there. It’s dangerous. So go back to reading, or better yet, go home and actually do your chores for a change.”

“Aw, c’mon! Let me at least go in the forest!” It was no surprise that Maya had forbidden her son to go into the forest that lay to the northeast of the compound; the Ten Rings’ territory was on the other side of it, and they sometimes snuck through to attempt a raid.

“Not today, squirt,” Tony said. “I’m on tribe business. But if Maya says you can, you can come to the next Market Day.” That was cheating, a little bit -- Tony already knew that Maya was planning to attend the next Market and take Harley with her.

Harley was suspicious, of course, but Tony gave nothing away, and the boy ran off again as Tony approached the edge of the forest.

Bruce hadn’t lived with the rest of the tribe since he was an apprentice, choosing instead to keep to the chemistry lab, an old concrete bunker about half a mile from the compound walls, still standing and sturdy despite the march of time. Most of the Avengers gave it a wide berth -- its apparent agelessness made people nervous. Bruce claimed that he lived in the bunker because the chemicals he worked with were too dangerous to risk exposing the rest of the tribe to them.

Tony thought that was bullshit. The bunker had been a chemistry lab for generations, but the chemists themselves had always lived in the compound. Bruce’s isolation was out of fear: fear of rejection, because Bruce’s mutation was very visible and a little intimidating. And fear of himself, of losing control of his overlarge body and hurting someone else.

Tony refused to give in to fear, his own or anyone else’s. It was one reason he’d ended up as Steve’s second-in-command, despite there being more skilled warriors and more experienced councillors. Tony pushed through the door into the bunker. “Bruce! Brucie, my poppet, come and see what I’ve brought you!”

There was a rumble from deep down below the ground, where the bunker’s stairs led. Tony waited, and a moment later, Bruce appeared, making his hulking way up the stairs. “Tony,” he said. “Is it Market Day again already?”

“No, Market Day isn’t for another hand of days,” Tony said. He was looking forward to it; Market Days were when he got to visit with his old friend, Rhodey, who had gone to the Shield tribe as a bride for their second-in-command, Maria. Tony really ought to stop thinking of him as one of the Avengers -- he’d been with Shield since before Tony’s promotion -- but old habits were hard to break. Tony showed Bruce the bottle in his hand. “I have a blood sample for you, from our allies-to-be.”

Bruce snorted. “Steve is making a mistake,” he opined, even as his massive hand reached out for the bottle Tony held. “They’ll turn on us.”

“We’ve been over it and over it,” Tony said. “The river is drying, and this is the fastest, easiest way to replace it. The council agreed it was necessary; what else can we do but back his play?”

“We can be prepared,” Bruce said, low and threatening. “I don’t like it.”

“We’re not going to let them catch us unawares,” Tony promised. He loved to watch Bruce work, his huge hands delicately manipulating the fine scientific equipment they’d scrounged and rigged. “How’s our bride looking?”

Bruce huffed at him and gently, so gently, shouldered him out of the way so he could reach into a cabinet for a clean dropper and a few strips of cloth. “No immediately obvious diseases. No alcohol or drug indica-- no, wait, I’m getting a little color on this band,” he said, pointing. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary, though -- painkiller, or maybe a sedative.”

“Probably had to be calmed after being overcome with joy to be chosen to come and live with us,” Tony said, though he meant rather the opposite. He could imagine how terrifying it must be, to be told you had to leave your family and home to marry a stranger and live with his tribe. Rhodey had _volunteered_ to go to Shield, and still been a nervous wreck in the weeks leading up to the wedding.

Bruce just grunted at Tony’s sarcasm. He considered the phials in his cabinets. “Do I need to test gender?”

“They already know our top five marriage candidates are all male,” Tony said. “And I don’t have a bead yet on how they feel about recreational sex, but... Hydra.”

Bruce grunted. “Narrow-minded idiots. I don’t know why-- Oh, type O,” he interrupted himself. “That’ll be useful.” He spotted another cloth and dripped a foul, green-black ooze onto it. It foamed up briefly, and then wisped into smoke, leaving a hole in the cloth. “Some exposure to the Sundering, but not more than we’d expect, given that their territory includes several old cities.”

“Age?”

Bruce shook his head. “Blood’s a renewing resource, it doesn’t have any age markers. You think they’re going to give us someone with one foot already in the grave?”

“Peggy mentioned it as a possibility, if they want to be rude and insulting,” Tony said. “And, you know, make us use up resources on someone who’s not able to produce much. Oh, well. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. So there’s no indication here that she’s unsuitable?”

“There could be plenty wrong with her that doesn’t show up in the blood,” Bruce said, “but the blood’s as clean as can be expected.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s time to do the mutation matches,” Tony said. “Steve said he’d send Clint and Sam around for theirs.”

Bruce nodded. “Might as well do you while we wait.” He fished out some more cloth testing strips and a thin knife.

Tony rolled his eyes as he pushed up his sleeve. “You know it’s not going to be a match.”

“Stop whining and let me stab you,” Bruce said. Tony laughed, startled, and Bruce poked his arm while he was distracted, gathering a healthy smear of the blood on the cloth. He added a few drops of the bride’s, then put the whole thing under a glass dome. Blood combinations were much less volatile than zygotes, but there was enough of a reaction to see in a microscope.

Tony wrapped his still-bleeding arm, grumbling about the futility of the exercise. By the time he’d finished, Bruce was carefully maneuvering his makeshift microscope over the dome.

“I’m just going to go out and see if Clint and Sam are on their way,” Tony said. He loved Bruce dearly -- they’d been friends since Tony’s childhood -- but too much time spent in the bunker made Tony’s skin crawl.

Bruce grunted, not bothering to look up. “Send them down when they arrive,” he said. “Unless they want you to take the samples out there.”

“I’m sure they’ll want to come in and say hello,” Tony said mildly. None of the Avengers were as frightened of Bruce as Bruce was of himself. One of these days, he’d convince Bruce of that.

Tony pushed out of the bunker and into the cooling late-afternoon air with a sigh of relief. He didn’t know how Bruce could stand it down there for so long. It was a little earlier than he’d expected, by the slant of the sun, but Clint and Sam would be on their way soon. Tony tried to decide which of them he hoped would be compatible. They were both great guys -- amazing warriors, strong workers, loyal and devoted. Sam would probably be better at soothing a frightened newcomer, but Clint was fantastic with kids.

Of course, it was possible that none of them would match, and tomorrow, Steve would send the next three down the line. Good matches were about one in four, so testing three at a time made for reasonable odds. The really awful disastrous ones were rarer, more like one in twenty. Most matches fell somewhere in the middle, from simple sterility to an assortment of guaranteed birth defects and health conditions for any offspring. (Tony wondered sometimes, privately, if Bruce’s parents had been not quite as diligent about their testing as they should have been, but they were both long dead now, and their stupidity -- if that was the case -- was hardly Bruce’s fault.)

Tony took another long breath of clean air and tried to listen for Clint and Sam’s approach. He was a halfway decent fighter, but no kind of tracker. Still, he kept trying. He closed his eyes and _listened_ \--

The bunker door opened, and Tony whirled around in surprise. Bruce eased his enormous shoulders through the narrow door and squinted in the golden evening sunlight. “Tony,” he said. “It’s a match.”

The world spun, and Tony would have fallen off, if Bruce had not carefully wrapped a hand around his arm to steady him. “That’s not... You missed something,” he said. “Go look again.”

“I didn’t miss anything,” Bruce said, his deep voice almost purring with amusement. “You’re allowed to be happy, Tony.”

Was he? He’d locked those dreams behind doors of steel in his thoughts, barricaded them and pulled a curtain over them and tried to forget they were there. “Bruce, I...”

“Congratulations, Tony,” Bruce said, as softly as his big voice could manage. “You’re going to be married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this AU, there is no Bruce/Hulk dichotomy; Bruce _is_ the Hulk, brain and brawn all at once.
> 
> Medical/forensic scientist readers are probably cringing at the comic-book science; I _know_ , I’m sorry. Chalk it up to them having to re-invent whole segments of the field in a post-apocalyptic world. :D


	2. The Wedding

The site that had been agreed on for the wedding was in the middle of the no-man’s land between their territories, a wide swath of rocky, nearly-barren land that took half a day to cross at the narrowest point. Tony’s first thought was that it was ugly as hell, not the most auspicious beginning for him and his bride. His second thought was that the open stretch made ambush all but impossible from either side, which was likely why it had been chosen. That would be even less auspicious, he supposed.

The bride-tent had been erected in the dubious shade of a scraggly tree. Tony’s stomach twisted nervously every time he glanced in its direction, and only by sheer force of will kept himself from fidgeting with his ceremonial tunic, embroidered and covered in beads of a dozen colors. He wondered if the tent had a hidden flap or screen, if she was watching him now and deciding whether to accept him, when he was finally allowed to see her at the end of the ceremony, and to petition her to join him and his tribe. Rejection wasn’t likely -- that would make for a particularly inauspicious beginning to the alliance, and she had probably been carefully coached. Still, it happened from time to time.

Traditionally, weddings took place with the bride’s tribe, or amidst the family they would be leaving, and the wedding night consummation took place in the bride’s home. Given the longstanding animosity between the two tribes, that wasn’t an option here, but the symbolism was being observed, at least.

He wondered if they actually expected him to stay the night here, to take his new wife to bed in that tent. There were no tents for the _rest_ of the tribe. Shit, Hydra were weird about marriage; they weren’t one of those tribes that still expected to _witness_ the consummation, were they? It was a big enough tent to hold at least a dozen people. The knots in Tony’s stomach got even tighter.

Hydra’s Purifier was also the bride’s clan head, a stern but stunningly beautiful woman who had introduced herself as Ophelia. She was at least a head taller than Tony, and she had glossy black hair that fell nearly to her waist and eyes the clear green of sun-kissed grass. She stood proud and confident as she performed the simple tests that confirmed Hydra was not handing their bride over to a husband whose mutation would kill her or their children. She exacted the oaths of protection and provision from Tony, as the bride’s husband-to-be, and then from Steve, as Tony’s clan head. (Not that the Avengers were numerous enough to bother with clan subdivisions, but there was no point in telling Hydra that, new allies or not.)

The deviation from the usual ceremony occurred after that, when Steve and Hydra’s chief -- Johann -- went over the terms of the alliance. They were both at least as impressively-dressed as Tony was, in full ceremonial armor. Johann wore his trademark helmet, which rumor said he never removed, even to sleep. It was possible; Tony kept his own mutation covered ‘round the clock, except to bathe. But sleeping in a helmet sounded much more uncomfortable than keeping a bandage wound around his chest. The helmet made Johann’s voice echo oddly as he and Steve recited the agreed-on terms for the witnesses.

Tony’s eyes kept drifting back toward the tent, wondering what he would find there. Would she be young or old? Beautiful or plain? Sweet or sharp? Would she be someone he could love?

At last, the chiefs were done and Ophelia stepped forward again, leading the procession to the tent. Ophelia looked amused, which Tony thought was distinctly unfair; _she_ wasn’t the one about to meet her new bride. She pulled back one flap and Johann pulled back the other.

Tony had to take a deep breath and steady himself; Steve put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“I remember meeting Peggy for the first time,” he murmured. “It’ll be all right.”

Tony could only _dream_ that his marriage would be even half as successful as Steve’s; Peggy had come to Steve and the Avengers seven or eight years ago from the Howling tribe, and together they were like a well-oiled machine, precise and efficient and about as unstoppable as a storm. Tony took another breath and ducked into the tent.

There were no attendants, which Tony found slightly sad, but traditions varied, so he couldn’t judge. His bride stood alone in the center of the space, a little taller than Tony but shorter than Ophelia, a gorgeously-embroidered veil covering her from head to knees. Steve and Johann and Ophelia filed in behind him, letting the tent flaps fall closed. It was dark for a moment as Tony’s eyes adjusted to the lantern light.

“Take now your bride,” intoned Ophelia, her eyes forest-dark in the dim light, “who shall stand at your side even as our tribes shall stand together.” It was a departure from the usual script, even for a marriage of alliance. She continued, unlike any wedding Tony had witnessed, “Come and see what your blood has bought.”

Heart in his throat, Tony spoke the last of his own part in the ritual. “I would claim you as my bride, to cherish as my own. All that is mine is yours, if you will consent to have me.”

She didn’t move to take his hand, but she didn’t deny or reject him, either, just stood there. She might have been a statue but for the way she swayed slightly, the way her breath puffed out the veil.

Tony stepped forward, and took hold of the veil in one trembling hand, waiting for her to respond. She didn’t. He took one last breath, and pulled, gently, to reveal--

Not a woman at all, but a man. A man who had been drugged half out of his mind, if the dreamy, unfocused gaze meant anything. He had been badly abused, and recently, by the color of the bruises on his face and throat. He was missing an arm, but otherwise looked... familiar, somehow.

“Bucky?” Steve breathed. “Oh, Sundering, _Bucky_.”

Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. _Bucky_ , Steve’s once best friend who’d been killed -- so they’d all thought -- a dozen years ago, when a building had collapsed on him during a mission into Sundered territory.

“What do you think?” Ophelia crowed. “Your marriage will no doubt be long and fruitful.” She barked a laugh and then snarled, her voice dripping with malice. “As fruitful as this _alliance_ , and as long as this day, and not one heartbeat longer.” Johann’s laughter had a sinister ring as it echoed in his helmet.

From outside came angry shouting, barely muffled by the tent’s walls. Steve’s jaw set and he turned on his heel, pushing past the still-chuckling Hydra chief.

Tony followed at his heel, hands worrying restlessly at the beads of his tunic, heart in his throat.

There were _dozens_ of Hydra warriors surrounding the site, shouting and waving their weapons at the small wedding party of Avengers. Where had they come from? Rocky and flat as the ground was, they couldn’t possibly have all been hiding underground, not unless they’d been working for--

For _months_. Ever since the first moment the alliance had been proposed. Tony groped at his hip for his smith’s hammer, his favored weapon, creator and destroyer in one, but it was absent. They’d gone back and forth over whether he should wear it as a symbol of his craft and his intent to build the marriage and the alliance, or if its secondary purpose as a weapon would give offense. He was beginning to think they should have taken the chance on offense.

“It’s been a trap from the start,” Tony said. Steve grunted in agreement. “They’re going to wipe us out here, and then ambush the compound.”

Steve’s knuckles cracked as he closed his hands into fists. “They can _try_ ,” he growled.

Johann and Ophelia came out of the tent. Ophelia’s hand was curled tightly around Bucky’s arm; there was a fresh bruise on his mouth that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

Beside Tony, Steve growled, low and dangerous.

“Allow me to present my renewed terms of alliance, Avengers,” Johann said, his voice ringing. “You will abandon your leader and join Hydra, and help us unite all the tribes under Hydra’s banner. Or we will crush you, and you will fare no better than this pathetic slave.”

“Get your hands off him!” Steve snapped.

“Why should I?” Ophelia asked, smirking.

Tony took half a step forward. “You gave him to me as my bride. He’s an Avenger now.”

Johann laughed. “Let it not be said that the Avengers have no spirit. Take him, then, and let him be counted as an Avenger for a few moments before we kill or enslave every one of you.”

Ophelia’s lip twisted in a snarl, and she shoved Bucky hard. He stumbled toward Tony and Steve, and would have fallen if Steve hadn’t dashed forward to catch him and draw him back to where the Avengers had clustered together.

“Help is on the way,” Steve promised them. “I’m not quite as much of a naïve idealist as they thought. Tony?”

Tony snapped a handful of decorative beads off his shirt, crushed them against each other, and threw them to the ground, where they began spouting thick, greenish smoke. The Avengers waiting a mile away would see it and be on their way in moments. They only had to hold Hydra off that long.

Hydra knew a call for reinforcements when they saw it. They gave up taunting or waiting for surrender and threw themselves into battle.

“Take him,” Steve commanded, all but flinging Bucky at Tony. “Protect him.”

Tony pulled Bucky’s arm over his shoulders. “You protect me first,” he quipped.

Steve grinned, the fierce light of battle behind his eyes. “Always,” he promised, just as the Hydra crashed into them.

Bucky made a soft, distressed noise and pressed his face into Tony’s neck. “I’s a trap,” he groaned.

“Yeah, we figured that out,” Tony said. He flung more beads from his shirt into Hydra faces, where they exploded into suffocating smoke that would leave them dizzy and weak for hours after breathing it in. His hand itched for his hammer.

Steve darted forward to yank the weapons away from Tony’s first two victims and turned them on their former owners with shocking violence.

Well, Tony considered, adjusting his hold on the staggering Bucky, maybe it wasn’t so shocking, all things considered.

To Tony’s right was Jan, shouting defiance and moving faster than the eye could track, her knives leaving wounds that were no worse than a wasp’s sting until the venom coating them began its work. On Steve’s other side was Peggy, inelegant but utterly effective in the way of the Howling tribe. At his back, he could hear Sam’s growl, Peter’s wild laughter and Carol’s focused snarl. If he was destined to die today, he couldn’t ask for better company. He flung the last of his beads and snatched his last resort from under his shirt -- a pre-Sundering pistol that he’d lovingly restored and painstakingly crafted bullets for.

If the alliance had been true, he’d thought of making it a bride-gift to the Hydra. Well, they could have the bullets, at least. He stepped back, pulling Bucky with him into the protected center of the Avengers’ circle. Jan and Steve closed the gap seamlessly as Tony spun in a slow circle, taking stock.

Two Hydra were battering at Carol, so Tony took aim and shot one of them over her shoulder. The thundercrack retort of the weapon was deafening, and Peter unleashed an unnerving howl into its echoes and whirled his bolas over his head. Bucky jolted like he’d been electrocuted, then fell to his knees and wrapped his arm over his head. Well, he was as protected there as he was clinging to Tony’s side.

Tony looked for his next target. His aim wasn’t as good as Clint’s, but the Hydra were pressed so close, it didn’t need to be. Still, the magazine only held ten rounds -- nine, now -- and the rest of his bullets were at the compound. He had to pick his targets carefully and make each shot count.

He shot out an enterprising Hydra who managed to get Peggy tangled in a rope. Another who had some kind of blowgun and was taking aim at Sam. He wasted two shots trying to get Johann, who was standing back beyond the fray and still laughing like a maniac. The first went wide, and the second ricocheted harmlessly off that terrible helmet. Another one had picked up the blowgun and was aiming it at Peter, so Tony shot him, too. They seemed to get the message, after that.

Jan yelped in pain as something wounded her, and Tony shot her assailant on reflex. He checked on Steve, but Steve in battle was an invincible whirlwind. Might as well offer to back up a bear or a mountain lion. He turned back just in time to see Sam take a hit to the leg and stagger. Tony shot his attacker to give Sam time to rebalance. They were getting weaker.

The circle began to cave as a focused effort pushed Peter back. Peter was fast and stronger than he looked, but there were too many Hydra. Two bullets left.Tony took aim and waited until they’d jostled into position, and shot straight through two of them. Peter gasped his thanks and rallied.

Tony turned, and caught only a glimpse of Ophelia’s cruel smile before she lashed out, and the barbed whip she carried snaked between Steve and Carol to catch on Tony’s arm. The barbs hooked his skin right through his shirt, and ripped both fabric and flesh viciously when she pulled. Tony’s arm felt like it had exploded in flames. He screamed, barely keeping his feet.

He couldn’t lift the arm, couldn’t _move_ it, couldn’t take aim. He gritted his teeth and tried to shift just enough to move the gun to the other hand.

A hand wrapped over his and jerked it upwards. Bucky’s expression was no longer vacant or terrified, but cold as winter. Those grey eyes were the color of a snowcloud and held exactly as much warmth. He swung the gun around, heedless of Tony still holding it, and pulled the trigger without even pausing to draw a bead.

A spray of red erupted in the base of Ophelia’s throat and she crumpled to the ground.

For an instant, the Hydra faltered, and Tony thought they might break -- but then Johann screamed some obscenity and they redoubled their efforts.

No more bullets. Lots more Hydra. Tony left the pistol in Bucky’s hand and picked up a fallen weapon, a heavy longknife. Bucky stared at the pistol as if it were a snake, a deadly spider, a Sundered creature, and crumpled back to his knees, retching. Tony checked the balance of the knife with his left hand -- awkward, but useable in desperation, which this surely was -- and stood over Bucky’s shaking form, ready.

The roar that sounded over the noise of battle was one Tony recognized, and he nearly dropped his guard in surprise and dismay. Steve hadn’t told him that Bruce would be with the rescue squad. _Oh, Bruce, how they misuse you_...

Misused or not, the sight of Bruce charging toward them, covered in warpaint and bellowing with rage, was enough to give even the most vicious Hydra pause. The first one who hesitated took one of Carol’s knives to the throat. The second sprouted a feathered shaft in her chest. Two more arrows followed in quick succession, each finding a Hydra target.

It was then that they broke, still screaming threats and taunts as they ran.

Tony stood fast until Bruce had chased them out of sight, then let the knife fall from nerveless fingers. Bucky seemed a little steadier now, which was good, because Tony didn’t think he could stand on his own any more. His knees folded, and he fell.

 


	3. Shivaree

When they released the sacrifice from the cage, he found that they were on unfamiliar ground. The sacrifice couldn’t have run even if he were strong enough; he had no idea which direction to go. He thought he could count three days of travel, or at least he had been fed three times, thick porridge that tasted of the drugs that kept his mind foggy and his body weak. He’d eaten it anyway, half-starved and knowing that if he didn’t, they’d only force the drugs on him anyway and deny him the food.

They opened the door of the cage and he tumbled out onto dry, rocky ground. He remembered that he hated them, but he could not remember why. They bolted a metal shackle to his leg and fastened him to a rocky outcrop so he couldn’t escape as they went about their preparations -- a large tent to raise, boltholes and hiding places to clear out and stock, weapons to prepare and stash.

The sacrifice lay on his rock and chased after memories that remained just out of the reach of his grasp, gauzy wisps dancing on a breeze.

A man came to look at him, tall and broad and wearing a gruesome helmet. The sacrifice thought he was supposed to be afraid, but he couldn’t remember why. Then came a woman, and he _was_ afraid, but he still didn’t know why.

They didn’t feed him that night. Without the drugs, his mind cleared, a little. Enough to recall that he was to be sacrificed as a bride. Not a literal sacrifice... probably. Enough to remember why he feared the woman, who had been his commander, before he had lost his arm and become useless, and who had then taught him to endure a bride’s duty. Enough to remember that he had a name other than the one they called him.

Not enough to know what it was.

When the sun rose the next morning, the woman came with a pair of her warriors. The sacrifice wondered which of them had replaced him as her favorite. He could pity them, somewhat. Under her direction, they doused him with water and roughly scrubbed the dirt from his skin. They shaved his face and his arm, and doused him again. The woman threw clothes at him and told him to put them on.

It took longer than she liked. He was weak and dizzy. The clothes were very fine, though, as if he were a real bride. He wondered why they bothered; it was all a trap.

They took him into the tent and covered him with a veil. The man with the helmet -- Johann, he remembered, the chief -- came in to look him over, but didn’t deign to speak. A scout reported that the other tribe was approaching. They made him eat another mouthful of bitter-tasting slop, more drugs in it than gruel, and left him there, alone.

His legs trembled, but if he sat, he didn’t think he would be able to stand again. There was a crack in the tentflap, and he could see the wedding, or some of it, from where he stood.

His doomed betrothed stood with poise, in a tunic of brilliant red, studded with white and gold beads. As the ceremony continued, however, it was the other tribe’s chief who drew his eye, tall and blond and tormentingly familiar.

The ceremony continued, and _continued_. Why didn’t they spring the ambush? The heat in the tent was making him dizzy, or maybe that was the drugs. He just wanted the farce to be over so he could fall to the ground and rest.

Then they were walking toward the tent. Oh, Sundering, Hydra wasn’t going to unleash their plot until he had looked his betrothed -- no, his _husband_ \-- in the face. He wanted to weep, but didn’t have the strength.

They came into the tent, blinking at the change of light. His husband’s eyes were kind and warm, a fitting match for the rich red tunic. His husband said the ritual words, and he should respond. Words of acceptance, or -- if this were some campfire tale -- even rejection. His throat refused to open, to spill forth a sound.

His husband pulled away the veil -- so gently, so carefully -- and froze in shock at the sight of him. It was the blond man who spoke, though. “Bucky?”

The word rang with the same familiarity as the man’s blue eyes, like something from a dream, or a distant memory. He groped after its meaning, but before he found it, they were leaving, his husband and the familiar blond man, charging back out of the tent, where-- Oh. The ambush.

The Hydra chief’s expression was hidden by that terrible helmet, but the woman was laughing, and it made a chill run up his spine.

He looked out the tent flap. Even with this narrow view, he could see how vastly outnumbered the other tribe was. It made him feel sad. Now he would not unravel the mystery of the blond man, or test the kindness he had seen in his husband’s eyes.

The woman did not like his sadness. She dragged him from the tent so that he could witness the other tribe’s decimation and be recalled to Hydra’s superiority.

His husband spoke for him, and then the chief, and he found himself stumbling across the rocky ground, only to be caught, steadied by the chief’s strong arm. “Easy, Bucky,” he murmured. “We’ve got you.”

Was that his name? Bucky? That... felt right. And if that was right, then the blue-eyed chief knew him, somehow.

His husband’s arm was around him then, and the howling of the attacking Hydra was like pressure on his brain, like ears trying to pop before an oncoming storm, like a dislocated joint aching to slide back into place. He was going to die. He knew that. He accepted it. But he wished, he wished before that happened, that he could _remember_.

He must have seen those blue eyes before. Must have seen the sun on that pale hair. Had he once known the way those limbs moved, bulging with muscle and quick like a striking snake? Had he known them in love, in labor, in battle?

An opening in the press, and he wanted to reach into it, to take the advantage it offered, but the blond chief was there already, moving like a creature from his dreams-- No. From his _memories_.

An explosion of sound jolted him from his thoughts, so loud it silenced _everything_ for an instant in the aftermath. Into that vacuum came a rush, a wave, a _flood_ of memories. They ripped at his mind, tearing at it like fragile gauze, revealing everything that had been hidden.

The fever-dreams he’d suffered after the loss of his arm had been _real_ , memories trying to fight their way into his consciousness.

He _remembered_.

“ _Best two out of three?” Steve offered, and Bucky just laughed. His once-scrawny friend was growing like a weed. Steve was already nimble and surefooted; a hair’s breadth of advantage in height, and Bucky wouldn’t have a hope of winning a match._

“ _Nah, let’s go swimming,” he suggested. They’d have to be careful to be back at the compound before evening mess, but they had an hour or two free._

_They were halfway to the river when they spotted a small knot of other trainees ahead in the trees. The way they giggled and shushed each other implied that they were up to no good. An exchanged look was all Bucky and Steve needed, and they changed course to follow._

_It didn’t take long to figure out that the others were headed to the chemist’s bunker, and obviously not on any errand. No, they were going to gawp at the apprentice’s mutation, probably._

_Steve’s jaw worked and knotted, and Bucky knew they were going to intervene, despite being outnumbered five to two._

_Before they could do anything, though, a small, pale figure dashed into their path: Tony, the smith’s boy. He wasn’t even ten yet, to the trainees’ sixteen, but he planted himself in the middle of the path, stance wide and arms outstretched. “Leave him alone!” the boy yelled, angry._

“ _Sundered dawn, he’s going to get himself killed,” Bucky hissed._

_Steve was already moving; Bucky cursed and followed. They were still outnumbered, and though Steve was growing, he was still smaller than most trainees. The others would win, if they forced a fight -- but the bullies would not walk away unscathed, and those bruises and scrapes would have to be explained to the trainers. The trainees slumped off in search of easier entertainment._

_Tony was not grateful for the rescue. He glared and sulked at them, and complained until the apprentice -- Bruce -- eased out of the shadow of the bunker’s doorway. Bucky had never been so close to the reclusive boy, and his heart pounded in fear._

_Bruce was of an age with Bucky, but towered over all of them, shoulders and arms bunched with muscle that made even the senior trainers look scrawny by comparison. He could fell Bucky or Steve with a single blow. But Tony showed not the slightest bit of apprehension, half-climbing Bruce’s body until the hulking apprentice huffed and gently lifted the boy to his shoulders._

_Steve overcame his own fear a heartbeat ahead of Bucky. He stepped forward and held out a hand. “I’m Steve.”_

_Bruce eyed him suspiciously for a long moment, but eventually took Steve’s hand, his own engulfing it entirely._

His name was Bucky, and he had been an Avenger.

Over his head, the pistol sang again. Bucky looked up in time to see Ophelia uncoiling her whip. Before he could shout a warning, it whistled through the air. Bucky’s husband -- Tony? _That_ Tony? -- let out a shout that danced on the edge of becoming a scream.

Tony couldn’t move; the whip had not only torn skin but damaged muscle. Bucky looked at her, at that cruel smile. The ambush had been of _her_ planning. It had been _her_ idea to lure the Avengers in with Bucky as bait. _Her_ idea to make him into a bride.

Rage roiled under his skin, thick and deadly like boiled syrup. He took the pistol, or tried. Tony’s hand had spasmed tight around the grip and did not relinquish it. Fine. Bucky lifted the gun, Tony’s blood coursing down to cover both their hands. He barely had to aim; his arm swung into position as if magnetized. He met Ophelia’s eyes and shot her in the throat.

It rebounded on him in ways he didn’t understand, seeing her die, knowing it was by his hand. He had killed with her -- killed _for_ her, at her side, so many times before. He had loved her as much as he hated her, as much as he feared her. And now he had killed her. He couldn’t quite make sense of the way the world spun as she fell, and Bucky found himself on his own knees, coughing up bitter bile.

A terrible roaring filled his ears and he shivered uncontrollably as wave after wave of pain and anger and loss rushed through him. He tried to shove it aside -- he should get up, help fight, at least die on his feet. His limbs refused to obey him, though, and the noises of battle swept over him in waves.

His husband fell beside him, unconscious and pale from loss of blood. That jolted Bucky into action. He couldn’t stand to fight, but he could roll Tony over, could tear strips out of his ruined bridal tunic to bandage the torn flesh of Tony’s arm, could cradle Tony’s head in his lap and count each shallow, precious breath.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he startled. He tried to roll into a defensive crouch and wound up in an untidy heap, too weak to lift his own weight.

“Easy, Buck,” said Steve. He dropped to one knee to check Tony’s pulse and peel back an eyelid, and then sagged with relief. “Still alive,” he breathed. Those sharp blue eyes were back on Bucky, then. “Hang tight. We’re scrounging up stuff to make litters for the wounded who can’t walk.” He gave Bucky a stern look. “That includes you, before you start trying to spout some nonsense about being stronger than you look or not deserving it or some other bullshit.”

Bucky made himself breathe, and nodded. “I... I _could_ walk,” he said stubbornly. “But it’d slow you down.” And from what he could remember, he didn’t think he’d be able to talk Steve into leaving him behind.

Steve squeezed Bucky’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on Tony. He’s probably lost more blood than everyone else put together, and I got no intention of losing my second-in-command today.”

Waiting for the litters to be constructed was the first moment that Bucky had to really study Tony. It was definitely the same Tony that Bucky remembered, the fiery promise of the youth blossomed into a frankly beautiful man, lean and muscular. Did he remember Bucky at all? He’d have still been in school when Bucky had disappeared, not yet old enough for either warrior’s training or a craftsman’s apprenticeship.

They’d been less than an hour on the road when Bucky let the swaying of his litter lull him into a doze. When he woke, he’d been tied to the litter poles, and he was slung between Steve and... Holy hell, how had Bruce gotten even _bigger_ than Bucky remembered? “Wh’happen?” he asked, his tongue thick and his mind sluggish.

“Buck?” Steve said, worried. “You back with us?”

Bucky frowned and checked the sun: he’d been out for _hours_. And his throat ached like he’d been screaming. “Steve,” he whispered. “What...”

Steve looked troubled. “You don’t know what they were giving you, do you?”

Bucky shook his head, dumb.

“Damn,” Steve sighed. “You went... berserk,” he told Bucky. “We had to tie you down to keep you from hurting yourself.”

 _Or anyone else_ , he didn’t say -- but he didn’t have to. Not with Bruce standing as Bucky’s guard. Bucky felt ill. “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Steve said, too quickly. Bucky stared at him, and he sheepishly amended, “Not much. Bruce caught you before you could do anything too serious. It’s... maybe a good thing you’re pretty weak. I’ll untie you the next time we stop, I prom--”

“Don’t,” Bucky interrupted. “Don’t untie me. That shit is still in me, and I won’t... I can’t hurt anyone else now, Steve. Don’t let me.”

Steve looked troubled, but Bruce nodded. “No telling how much of that stuff is left in your system, or how long it’ll be between waves,” he rumbled. “We’ll let you up to eat and then tie you back down.” He shot a look at Steve, who was gearing up to protest. “For his own safety, Steve.”

With four litters to carry, it took almost a full day for the wedding party to return to the Avengers’ compound. Tony didn’t wake up until they were within sight of the compound’s lookout towers, and even then he was too weak from loss of blood to stand, though they paused for food and water and he managed to sit up and begin fretting over the _other_ wounded.

The healers met them at the compound gates and swarmed over the wounded like ants, carrying them off to the infirmary. Steve followed, he and Tony both issuing commands. Bucky, needing a wholly different sort of treatment, watched them go with a feeling of despair.

The chief healer, Helen, was someone Bucky hadn’t met before, and that came with an odd sort of relief. She looked at his bruises and minor wounds briefly, and asked an endless series of questions about the drugs that Hydra had fed him, most of which he couldn’t answer. Finally, she took a vial of blood with distracted gentleness and agreed to his insistence that he be restrained, though she moved him to a room in the infirmary first, and the bonds they used to tie him down were padded with cloth.

Bucky tested them, straining, and closed his eyes in relief when they flexed but did not break.

When he opened them again, Steve was there. “You back with us, Buck?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t want to ask, and he _had_ to know. “How bad was it this time?”

“You weren’t out nearly as long as last time,” Steve reported. “Half an hour, tops.”

Bucky let out a shaky breath. He was improving. Hydra hadn’t Sundered him, hadn’t turned him into a monster.

“You okay, Buck?”

He hesitated, caught between _better than I’ve been in years_ and _I’ll never be okay again_.

Steve grimaced. “Dumb question,” he said. “Buck, I’m... I’m sorry I didn’t go back to find you. I’m so, so sorry.”

Bucky’s innards attempted to flop over in his gut. “Skies, no, Steve,” he gasped. “A Sundered building fell on me! I should’ve died, and if you’d come looking, you would’ve died, too!”

“Except for how you didn’t,” Steve pointed out.

“You couldn’t know that,” Bucky said firmly. “Steve, you don’t have to be sorry for that. And, hell, you brought me back. That’s all I could need.”

“Well, me and Tony,” Steve said, “and the rest of the team.”

Heat flooded Bucky at the thought of Tony, along with an uncertain jag of ice. “You really made Tony your second?”

Steve smiled. “I really did. I don’t know if you remember him at all--”

“I remember some,” Bucky said.

“Then you know he’s as brave as any warrior could be, smarter than his father ever was, loyal to a fault, and not the least bit afraid of telling me when I’m being a fool. Everything I need in a second.”

Bucky smiled through the ache. “Found a good replacement, then.”

“Bucky.” Steve leaned forward, blue eyes sad and earnest, and put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “No one could _ever_ replace you.” He squeezed, then sat back. “You found yourself a good husband, though, I’ve gotta say.” His mouth curved into a smirk, and if Bucky’s hand hadn’t been tied to the bedrail, Steve would’ve gotten a pillow in his smug face.

 _Fuck_ , but he’d missed this, without ever even knowing it, and Sunder Hydra for taking it away from him.

 


	4. Wedding Night

Helen clucked her tongue over Tony's arm. “You should have been seen to earlier,” she chided, even as she rinsed the wound with clear water.

“I'm Steve’s second,” Tony reminded her, as he did every time. “Unless it's life-threatening, it's my job to see everyone else treated first.”

She sniffed dismissively. “In the aftermath, perhaps, but we are safe here. Wounds should be treated in order of severity, not seniority.” She lifted Tony’s arm and set it on a brace, perhaps a little less gently than she might have. He was glad the numbing agent had begun its work. It had hurt badly enough when she’d cleaned out the long gash.

Tony worked his jaw as he watched her thread her needle. “Hydra declared war on us yesterday,” he said. “I'm not sure anywhere is safe, now.” Before she could argue more, he added, “How's Bucky?”

“Resting,” Helen said. “I don't know what kind of drugs they gave him, but he's only lucid in waves. We've had to restrain him to keep him from hurting himself or anyone else. But the lucid periods are growing longer, and the time between shorter. If the trend continues, he should be fully recovered in the next few hours. The Captain is sitting with him, in the meantime.”

“That makes-- ow! Why do the stitches hurt more than getting cut in the first place?” Tony complained. Apparently the numbing agent only went so deep.

“Adrenaline and anticipation,” Helen said primly, and stabbed him again. Tony gritted his teeth and kept his breathing shallow until she was done. When she started winding fresh bandages around Tony's arm, she asked, “Are you sure Bruce didn't find anything in the blood they sent?”

“Mild sedative,” Tony said, “but nothing like what you’re describing.” He flexed and straightened his arm, getting a feel for the pull of the stitches and ignoring Helen’s scowl. “Doesn't mean they didn't wait until after they took the sample to dose him. Or that they haven't developed something that doesn't come out in the blood.”

“Or that they even gave us his blood at all,” Helen said. “I've got a fresh vial to send Bruce, for comparison.”

“I'll take it out to him when we’re done here,” Tony offered.

“No,” said Helen. “When you're done here, you have a war council to attend. I'll send Natasha with the sample. He'll need someone less abrasive to talk to, after...”

Tony grunted. For a man with such a terrifying countenance, Bruce was shockingly delicate. Playing the monster inevitably drove him into even more seclusion than usual for days afterward, no matter how necessary it had been. “Wish he hadn’t had to do that.”

“He wouldn't have done it if your lives hadn't been at stake,” Helen said in a reassuring tone that helped not at all. “He knows you don't really see him as a beast.” She tied off the bandage. “War council,” she reminded him. “The Captain is waiting, and so is Bucky.”

“We’re having a war council in infirmary quarters?”

“So it seems. Get out; I have work to do. And hold off on consummating your marriage until your stitches are out and I get these results back from Bruce, just to be safe.”

Tony snorted. It wasn’t as if they were going to be staying married.

***

Steve was talking quietly to Bucky when Tony came in, but they both stopped and looked up when he tapped on the door frame. Steve’s eyes flickered down Tony’s body and back up, a quick assessment. “Arm okay?”

“Helen stitched me back up,” Tony said. He flexed the arm a little in its sling, and grimaced. It hurt like a son of a bitch.

Bucky winced and hunched his shoulders. His legs and wrist were still in restraints, but they’d been loosened a little so he could sit up.

“Not the wedding night you were hoping for,” Steve said wryly. “I’m sorry.”

Tony snorted. “Maybe I’ll have better luck with the next one.” He offered Bucky a half-smile. “Not that I’m not delighted that you’re back,” he said. “But it’s a little hard to take those oaths seriously when they were a setup.”

“Actually, Peggy’s got some thoughts on that score,” Steve said.

“What’s to think about?” Tony asked. “The whole thing was a sham.”

“But it wasn’t,” Peggy said, coming in behind him. The little guest room was very crowded with all four of them in it, even when she’d perched on the arm of the little chair Steve was sitting in. “All the forms were followed,” she continued, her bright, sharp eyes flicking between Tony and Bucky. “It was a true alliance and a true wedding. Granted that Bucky’s not what we were expecting--”

“Starting with the whole _not female_ thing,” Tony pointed out, “bouncing through _not actually a member of Hydra_ , and landing square in the middle of _was a distraction and a setup for the ambush_.” Bucky flinched, eyes sliding away, and Tony immediately felt guilty. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said quickly.

“The fact that it was a distraction doesn’t mean it can’t be real,” Steve said carefully. “And why are you so hung up on the gender question? I know you’ve fooled around with guys before.”

“Because Hydra did specifically it to insult us,” Tony said. “They _knew_ the odds had us matching that blood sample with a man. Anyway, the point of tribal intermarriage is _breeding_ , isn’t it?” Tony said. Why did he have to spell this out? Steve wasn’t usually this dense, and even when he was, Peggy usually set him straight in short order. “Genetic diversity; I know this gets covered in school.”

At least focusing on all the reasons it couldn’t be real kept him from giving rein to the small part of himself that wanted it to be. Bucky had been a hero, a _legend_ , before the accident.

“That’s all true,” Peggy said, “to a point. But just because Hydra wanted to insult us doesn’t mean we have to be insulted. Bucky was born to the Avengers, so he’s not bringing new genetic stock back to us anyhow. And while interbreeding is one of the primary reasons that tribes exchange members from time to time, it’s not a _requirement_. It _could_ be a valid marriage, by Avengers standards, anyway.”

Tony wanted very badly to fold his arms in irritation, but that would probably pop several stitches and also hurt like hell. “Okay, I went down my reasons; now let’s hear yours. Why are you pushing so hard to keep this in place?”

“Because we can’t take Hydra on our own,” Peggy said. “They’re too big. If they bring their full power around to focus on us -- between that and their resources, we won’t last another year. We need the other tribes to support us.”

“And if we can say that they attacked us after sealing an alliance with a wedding, then that’s a heavy enough crime against the Covenants to bring some of the other tribes to stand with us,” Steve finished.

“They thought of that already,” Tony pointed out. “They gave us a tribe member who’s not actually Hydra.”

“I lived and fought with them for more than ten years,” Bucky said softly. “I didn’t... I couldn’t remember anything before they found me, so I just...” He shook his head and looked away, eyes downcast. “I let them make me one of them.” He glanced at Steve, and turned his gaze back toward the wall. “I didn’t _go_ to them willingly, exactly, but I never tried to leave. They never treated me as an outsider.”

“This is how they treat their own?” Tony said dubiously.

“It is,” Bucky said, still focused on the wall, “if you’re not a warrior. All Hydra are chattel to their clan heads, but warriors are the most valuable, so they’re treated better. Everyone else is just a mouth to feed and a body to work.”

“Glad you’re out of it, then,” Steve said, looking troubled.

Tony shoved his fingers through his hair and huffed out a long sigh through his nose, putting the pieces together in his mind. If Bucky was, by the Covenants, a Hydra, and Hydra had offered him as a bride to seal an alliance with the Avengers -- which they had, if not in good faith -- then Peggy and Steve were right: the other tribes were almost obligated to stand with the Avengers.

Some of them would stand with the Avengers in any case, such as the Howlers -- the tribe Peggy had been born to -- and the Four. But there were other tribes who might prefer to remain neutral for this war.

The X tribe teetered constantly on the edge of abandoning the Covenants anyway, embracing their mutations rather than trying to control them, sometimes to disastrous results. There were three or four other territories between Hydra and the X, and they had their own enemies. The X would not side with Hydra, but they might not see any profit in fighting them, either.

The Shield tribe shared borders with both Hydra and the Avengers. They were on-again, off-again allies of the Avengers, but at the moment they rested in studied neutrality, and might well be tempted to turn against the Avengers if there was enough gain in it for them.

The Guardians were, as near as Tony had been able to tell, a bunch of assholes. They could be fun, but they could also be vicious as hell. Tony didn’t want to go asking them for favors without hedging the bets in his favor as much as possible.

And Peggy was right about Hydra’s numbers. Even if they were inferior warriors as a whole, overwhelming numbers tended to render skill levels irrelevant. If the only way to gain status among the Hydra was by fighting, then Hydra would have all the fighters they could possibly handle.

Tony sighed again. “You’re actually okay with this plan?” he asked Steve. “You’re probably the closest thing you’ve got to his family, anymore. And you’re usually more of a stickler for sticking to the truth.”

“It’s not like you’re going to hurt him,” Steve said, patient. “And it _is_ the truth, if... slightly edited.”

Tony snorted, and looked at Bucky. “What about you?”

Bucky blinked at him in apparent confusion. “What?”

“You’re really willing to go along with doing this? With pretending to be -- sorry, Steve -- with _continuing_ to be married to me? Until this whole nonsense is dealt with, at least?”

Bucky licked his lips and glanced over at Steve. “You rescued me,” he said, voice rough. “The tribe. You got me away from Hydra, you protected me when I couldn’t even stand on my feet. And now you’re protecting me from myself. I owe the Avengers everything. This ain’t such a big payment, at the bottom of the tally.”

It may not have been _big_ , but it was hardly _small_.

Before Tony could protest, though, Bucky smiled, just a little, and said, “Besides, I’ve been told you’re quite the catch.”

Jokes, now, as if Tony needed more reason to admire Bucky. And it was, in the end, for the good of the tribe. Tony sighed and nodded his acceptance.

He could just think about it like any other inter-tribal political maneuver, he reasoned. It wasn’t as if Bucky was moving in with him.

***

The fact that Hydra hadn’t already regrouped and attacked the Avengers’ territory suggested that they were not entirely as prepared for their invasion as they had thought. Either the Avengers’ rescue squad had thrown Hydra for a loop, or Ophelia’s death had caused Hydra’s numerous clans to squabble for power. Bucky was of the opinion that it was the second, and that the power vacuum would take no more than a week or so to fill. If it went longer, their leader, Johann, would step in to settle things personally.

Whatever the reason, the delay could only help the Avengers. Steve put Clint in charge of the warriors who guarded the eastern border, and sent out Jan and the other runners to the nearest tribes to request a council. Normally, tribal councils were held informally during Market Days, and more formal councils convened during the spring and autumn festivals, but with a week at most to prepare, there was no time for such nicety.

Tony gathered his apprentices and retreated to the smithy and his workshop to prepare armor and weapons and other devices. Bruce and his apprentice would be cooking up his own concoctions, like the beads that had adorned Tony’s wedding tunic and venoms to edge their blades. The healers were busy stocking their own stores, too.

The compound was an anthill of activity, but it was the industry of war, and it left Tony’s mouth tasting sour. Not to mention how irritable it made him to try to work with his arm tied up in a sling. He could manage fine detail work as long as he kept his elbow propped on a table, but he had to delegate the heavier tasks to his assistants.

Toward the end of the first day of preparations, Tony looked up from adjusting the tension coil on a crossbow winch to find Bucky in front of him, holding a bowl of rich-smelling stew. “You didn’t come in to dinner with the apprentices,” Bucky said.

Tony had meant to follow them after completing the one task he’d been working on, but then had been consumed with the work. “I forgot,” he sighed. “It happens. See what a terrible husband I make?” he joked, offering a lopsided smile.

Bucky didn’t laugh, just held out the bowl, patiently waiting for Tony to take it. “You should eat,” he said.

Tony sighed and pushed the winch away, clearing a space for Bucky to set the bowl down. “Fine, give it to me.” He shoveled a spoonful into his mouth. It was excellent stew, tender meat and flavorful vegetables, and Tony realized that dinner wasn’t the only meal he’d missed.

Bucky leaned against the worktable, waiting. “I remember you,” he said after a moment. “From before. I didn’t, at first, but... You’re different.”

Tony snorted at that. When Bucky had been lost, Tony had still been a smooth-faced kid. Not that Bucky was all _that_ much older -- he and Steve had been patrolling warriors for only a couple of years when it happened.

“Ten years will change a boy into a man,” Tony agreed between bites. “Surprised you noticed me enough back then to be able to remember.”

“I remember you being _smart_ , but none too cautious,” Bucky said, smiling. “I remember... I remember you were in trouble all the time, it seemed like, for arguing with the teacher.”

“Less for the arguing itself,” Tony said, “and more for daring to be _right_.”

Bucky’s grin grew wider. “You were smart,” he repeated, and then he looked around the workshop that was Tony’s chief domain. “Still smart. It’s good. Fighters and marksmen, we’re not hard to come by. But brains like yours--”

“Are what caused the Sundering,” Tony interrupted, rubbing at his chest. He gulped down the rest of the stew and pushed the bowl toward Bucky. “Thanks for bringing the food.”

“You’re welcome. Gotta keep my husband in fighting form, after all.” Bucky said it with a small, almost tentative smile, sharing the joke between them.

It would be so easy to be charmed by the act, to forget that what was between them was a fiction. Tony pulled the winch back across the table. “Better get back to it,” he said.

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky said. He paused at the door. “Ah...”

“What is it?” Tony asked, already distracted.

“Steve thought it would be... Uh.” Tony looked up, and Bucky ducked his head, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Blood report’s back and all clear, so Helen’s cut me loose from medical, and...” Bucky glanced at Tony, lip caught between his teeth. “Steve said I should move into your quarters.”

 _Damn it, Steve._ Well. Bucky had to sleep somewhere, and it would be too easy to spot separate quarters once the other tribes arrived. Tony sighed. “Right, okay. I can sleep on the floor. Just don’t step on me if you get up before me.” Sleeping rooms were tiny, not much bigger than they had to be to hold a bed and a shelf.

“I can’t put you out of your own bed, Tony!” Bucky looked horrified.

“We can take turns,” Tony said. “Sleep in shifts. Something. We’ll figure it out.”

Bucky looked like he was going to say something else, but then he deflated. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

***

Bucky sat on the side of the bed -- _Tony’s_ bed, in _Tony’s_ quarters, and Bucky supposed he should try to think of them as _theirs_ , but it was hard, when they hadn’t even stood in the room together, much less shared it as a couple.

The sun was long set, and Bucky figured there was only so long Tony could work by lamplight. He’d have to be coming back to his quarters soon. And then they’d...

Bucky’s mind fuzzed around that thought, a bit. Tony was still hurt, could barely move his wounded arm. He’d be in no shape to take Bucky to bed, even if he hadn’t made it clear that he didn’t intend to. But they could... talk, maybe. Come to some understanding. Share the bed for sleeping, if not for anything else.

Bucky wouldn’t object if Tony wanted anything else, though. How long had he stood in the smithy ‘shop doorway, Tony’s dinner completely forgotten in his hand, and just watched Tony work? Stripped down to an undershirt in the oppressive heat, Tony’s skin had glistened in the light from the fires, back and shoulders and arms rippling with muscle from countless hours of pumping bellows and swinging a smith’s hammer. The sight had made Bucky’s mouth run dry.

And that wasn’t even mentioning Tony’s quick wit, kind eyes, or infectious smile.

Bucky was completely fucked. And not in any of the ways he _wanted_ to be.

He looked down at the pistol in his lap; he’d brought it home from the battle, cleaned it and oiled the metal, intending to return it to its owner. Its weight was a comfort, a reminder that this was all _real_. That Ophelia was dead, a blessing and a burden in one. That Bucky was alive, and back in the embrace of the Avengers.

Even if he’d rather be in the embrace of one _particular_ Avenger.

He shook it off. Tony would come in for the night, soon, and Bucky thought he could at least convince Tony to sleep beside him. He could fool himself, for a few days at least, that it was Tony’s healing arm and not lack of interest that kept their marriage unconsummated.

Soon. Tony would be home soon.

 


	5. Dowry

Tony solved the sleeping problem by staying in his workshop all night. There was a lot of work to be done, and Hydra could descend on them at any minute. He wasn’t the only one working late; the usual guard watch had been tripled, and whenever he stepped outside to stretch his legs and back, he could hear the faint rhythms of the work-chants coming from the fortifications crew, improving defenses for those who would remain behind.

When Kamala arrived just before dawn to stoke the smithy fires and set the rods and ingots to heat, Tony ducked out to go to the mess for some breakfast.

Steve slid onto the bench across from Tony. The bags under his eyes suggested he hadn’t had much more sleep than Tony’d had. He gave Tony a shrewd look, but didn’t say anything until they’d both scraped their bowls clean.

“Bad luck to sleep alone on your wedding night,” Steve said.

Tony snorted. “Good thing it wasn’t really my wedding night, then.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “You could do worse,” he pointed out.

Tony was glad they’d finished eating, or he would’ve choked on that. Bucky could sure as hell do a lot _better_. “Funny,” he said, dry.

“I wasn’t joking,” Steve said. “I think you two would be good together.”

“What the hell.”

Steve shrugged, blushing a little. “You’re my two best friends,” he pointed out. “Be good to see you close with each other, too.”

“Let it go, Steve,” Tony advised.

Steve held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, whatever. What’s the plan today, then?”

Tony considered it. “Crossbow bolts and bullets, mostly. Repairs as they come in, of course. You?”

“Group drills,” Steve said. “No one’s going to get better on their own in the next day or two, but we might manage to hammer home some of those teamwork responses.”

“Good luck with that,” Tony said.

Steve nodded. “You too. Oh, add some arrowheads to your list, too, while you’re at it.”

Tony calculated. “We’re going to need more metal, if this keeps up too long.” And with a war in the offing, no one would be going to the Market for a while.

“I asked the Shields to bring us some when they come,” Steve said.

“You have more faith in them than I do,” said Tony sourly. “Rhodey has some pull with them on our behalf, but not a lot.”

Steve shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to ask.” He stood up and clapped Tony’s shoulder. “Have a good day. And try to get some sleep, at some point.”

“Hypocrite,” Tony accused, fond. “I will if you will.”

Steve rolled his eyes expressively before heading off into the compound.

Tony grinned and went back to the workshop, where he found Kamala already pulling shafts for crossbow bolts, and Miles steadily pouring lead into the bullet molds.

Lead and brass would do for the bullets, but arrowheads needed something that would hold an edge, and that meant steel. Tony gave his apprentices a quick inspection, and then headed for the forge. He could pump bellows and pour molds one-handed, if he was careful and steady.

***

Mid-day was hot, especially in the smithy. Tony’s injured arm ached unbearably from the motion of pumping the bellows even when he only using the good arm, and he was reduced to simple detail tasks. The heat made Tony’s vision dance and waver. And as he arranged a length of sheet-chain over the dummy so he could repair the broken links, he nearly tripped over his own feet.

A strong hand caught him by the elbow and steadied him. “Careful,” Bucky said.

Tony turned to look at Bucky, and his head kept going around, and around and--

“Whoa!” Bucky said, and when had he put his arm all the way around Tony’s waist? He half-carried, half-dragged Tony to the nearest bench. “You didn’t get any sleep at all last night, did you? Sit,” he commanded. “I’ll get you some water.”

Tony wanted to protest, but his tongue felt like lead and glue, heavy and sluggish. He subsided, and a moment later Bucky returned with a cup. “Here, drink this.” It was warm and a little brackish, but it tasted like honeyed wine to Tony’s parched mouth.

He emptied the cup and wiped the soot and sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “What’re you doing here?”

“Brought lunch out for you and the kids,” Bucky said, waving toward the table, where a spot had been cleared for a tray piled with bread and fruit and cold sausage. “And Steve said if you’ve got any work you can give me, that I should stay and help you.”

“Of course he did,” Tony muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Tony said. He shook off the queasy lassitude of the heat and exhaustion. “I’m sure we can find something for you to do.” That was all too true; there was far more work than there were hands to do it, and even with only one arm, there was plenty Bucky could do that would free up his apprentices for more delicate tasks.

Tony forced himself to eat a roll and an apple, but the unfinished work grumbled more loudly than his stomach, and he was back at it before long. He foiled Steve’s transparent little gambit to push Tony and Bucky together by handing Bucky over to Kamala. He wished he knew why Steve was so determined about their relationship -- assuaging his conscience, perhaps, for using their “marriage” to make the other tribes fall in line?

Whatever the reason, Tony wasn’t going to let it happen. Bucky had suffered enough; he deserved a chance at a real life.

He was certainly throwing himself into life with the Avengers, going out of his way to be helpful everywhere he went -- certainly, he made himself valuable to the smithy and workshop. He pumped the forge bellows tirelessly, sharpened the cooled arrowheads, lent his weight to the heavy press lever that Kamala couldn’t yet pull by herself, carried and cleaned without complaint, made sure Tony and the apprentices were all fed and hydrated, and chatted cheerfully with anyone who’d answer him. Which mostly wasn’t Tony, but the apprentices, being young, were excited to have someone new to gossip with.

Tony could feel Bucky’s eyes on him from time to time, and when he looked around, Bucky didn’t try to hide it. Tony couldn’t read Bucky’s expression. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

It was nearing sundown when Tony sent the apprentices to their dinner and beds. He tried to send Bucky with them, but Bucky shrugged and kept working, stacking wood for the fires and then moving on to sort the pins and nails and other small pieces that got scattered around over the course of a day.

He was humming softly as he worked, a melody Tony didn’t recognize but which had a wistful, almost mournful air, and then the sound stopped mid-phrase.

Tony looked around, a little startled by the song’s abrupt end, but Bucky didn’t seem to notice. He was frowning down at the notched gear in his hand, as if wondering where it came from.

“Bucky?”

He didn’t move. Tony went closer. “Bucky, hey. You okay?” Bucky’s eyes were unfocused, and he didn’t seem to hear Tony at all. “Bucky?”

Bucky blinked once, slow, and then again. Just as Tony was reaching out to touch him, he jerked, and startled, and looked around with wide, panicked eyes, his whole body tensing defensively.

“Hey, it’s just me,” Tony said, taking a step back and showing his hands. “Bucky? You with me?”

Bucky’s wild gaze locked on Tony’s face, his breath coming in short pants. He stared for a moment. “Tony?”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “It’s me.”

Bucky blew out a breath and the tension went out of his neck and shoulders. “Thought I was back there, for a minute.”

“It’s okay,” Tony said, soft and soothing. “You’re right here. Looked like you spaced out for a bit. Might be the heat, or maybe the aftereffects of the drugs they gave you.”

“Maybe.” Bucky shuddered, and curled his hand protectively around the stump of his left arm. “I didn’t hurt anyone?”

“Nope, you just froze up,” Tony said.

The rest of the tension eased out of Bucky’s spine. “Good. That’s... that’s good.”

“You might want to go see Helen,” Tony suggested. “Just to make sure.”

Bucky nodded, but didn’t straighten. “Would... would you come with me? She’s... a little scary.”

“ _Helen_?” Tony couldn’t imagine anyone _less_ scary than Helen; she was one of the smartest people Tony knew, and one of the kindest.

Bucky cringed a little. “Nevermind, it’s--”

“It’s okay,” Tony said, feeling inexplicably guilty for putting that look of shame and disgust on Bucky’s face. Maybe she reminded him of someone from Hydra; who was Tony to judge? “I’ll go. Should probably get some food, anyway.”

Bucky shuddered and slumped in relief. “Yeah,” he agreed. “And you should sleep tonight, too. I’ll take the floor, just... come to bed. Please.”

Tony thought about protesting, but if Steve found out Tony had skipped a second night’s rest -- especially after the dizzy spell he’d suffered earlier, not to mention the way his hands were starting to shake -- there would be hell to pay. “Fine.”

Bucky smiled, that breathtaking, bright smile that made Tony want to smile back, to do something to make it stay. Even if it meant -- ugh -- taking care of himself and catering to Steve’s weird desire to see them acting out the parts of a proper marriage. Tony could only assume Bucky’s enthusiasm was rooted in an old and deep-seated habit to please Steve.

So fine, he’d go share quarters with Bucky, and he’d take breaks at regular intervals so they could be seen eating together, and he’d play the part of a devoted new husband, if it would make Steve happy.

At least Steve wouldn’t expect them to consummate it.

***

The X tribe’s envoys arrived three days after Steve’s runners had gone out, only hours after Steve sent Natasha to ghost the nearest Hydra borders and report back when they started massing for their attack. The X simply melted out of the forest on the far side of the Avengers’ territory, causing the southern watchguard to go into mild hysterics over how close they’d gotten before being spotted.

It wasn’t a full contingent of X warriors, but a small group of envoys who had come to size up the situation before committing X’s strength. Their spokesman, Scott, called them _ambassadors_ , which made Tony want to roll his eyes at the pretentiousness -- X was about the same size as the Avengers, a core of around three hundred people with a few independent clans living on the outskirts. The other X envoys, Ororo and Logan, _did_ roll their eyes, so Tony guessed the guy was just always an arrogant ass.

Tony left his apprentices with tasks they could handle unsupervised and helped Steve entertain the _ambassadors_ , to go over the tale of the wedding and Hydra’s duplicity and appeal to them for help. Bucky hovered at Tony’s shoulder the whole time, playing his part as Hydra’s sacrificed pawn.

Scott and Ororo listened intently to Steve’s recounting of events, but Logan kept looking over at Tony and Bucky, eyes narrow, with an air so menacing that with each passing moment, Bucky shuffled further and further behind Tony, as if he were trying to hide.

When Steve had finished, Ororo turned her eyes on Bucky. “Will you tell us your view of these events?”

“He shouldn’t have to tell that tale more than once,” Steve growled. “When the other tribes come--”

“No,” Bucky said. His voice was soft, but it was enough to jolt Steve to a halt. “I’d rather... I don’t want a big audience.”

“Bucky,” Steve said, but Bucky shook his head.

“Well, get on with it,” said Scott, and then, “What?!” when Ororo jabbed him hard in the shoulder.

Bucky took a breath, and then another, steadying himself, and his hand crept into Tony’s. The way it was shaking, Tony didn’t think it was entirely for show. “Always knew I had a hole in my memories,” he said. “They told me I’d hit my head. Which might even have been true. But they treated me like one of their own, and I never thought to question it, not for years. Not until I...”

His hand tightened on Tony’s like he was holding a lifeline, and he closed his eyes. “It was a skirmish on the northern border, against the Ten Rings. They had a whole stockpile of pre-Sundering weapons. Explosives. Lost my arm, and it was after that, healing, that I started to... Remember. I thought they were fever dreams. But they seemed so familiar.

“I asked about them.  Why wouldn’t I? I thought I was remembering comrades who’d fallen when I lost my memories. They let me think that, and then... things get fuzzy. I remember... I remember being told that since I couldn’t fight anymore, they were going to make a bride of me, to seal a treaty.” He grunted. “Think that’s when I knew something was wrong. They’ve sent out brides before, but I’d never heard of Hydra making any treaties or Covenant alliances. But they... whatever they were putting in my food to help with the pain, they increased the amount, or added something else, I don’t know. I couldn’t even walk, for days at a time. I don’t... remember much, until the wedding.”

“And it happened how he said?” Scott asked, nodding at Steve.

Bucky shrugged, eyes downcast. “Wasn’t there for the first part. They’d had to let up on the drugs a little so I could do my bit, but all I remember was that the tent was hot and stuffy and it was even hotter under that veil. Until they came in and I saw Steve, and I _knew_ , then.” He was trembling like an aspen leaf in a gale. “But I couldn’t... It was too late, before they even arrived, to warn them, even if I could.”

Ororo cocked her head, studying him. “And despite that, you cling to him? Would you not rather call a Council to dissolve the marriage? You have cause.”

“No,” Bucky said quickly, and Tony was going to lose feeling in his fingers if Bucky held on any tighter. “No. It may have been for reasons of treachery, but I. I want this.”

The envoys from X exchanged looks, and Tony knew they’d been hoping to find an excuse to leave the Avengers to their own devices.

***

Logan dropped down next to Tony at breakfast the next morning and leaned close, sniffing.

“Um.” Tony glanced across the table at Steve, who looked just as baffled as Tony felt. Bucky, on Tony’s other side, was straight-faced, but watching Logan closely.

Finally, Logan straightened up and shoveled eggs into his mouth. “So, bub,” he said through the mouthful, “you wanna tell me why you hauled us all the way out here to defend a sham marriage?”

Steve stiffened and Bucky went very still.

“I’m sorry?” Tony said, putting his own fork down to face Logan directly. _Portrait of an offended husband_ , he thought drily.

Logan didn’t even look at him, just shoveled another forkful of eggs into his face. “Y’haven’t fucked,” he said. He tapped his nose with his free hand. “Can’t fool this.”

Goddamn X tribe and their cultivated mutations. Tony huffed. “Hydra attacked us _at the wedding_ ,” he pointed out. “Bucky’s been recovering from being drugged out of his damn mind and I got my arm sliced open right down to the bone.” He waggled his bandaged arm. “And there was some question about the compatibility bloodwork, so we’ve had to have our chemist re-do it all. So yes, consummation was put on hold. That doesn’t make it any less real.”

“Compatibility,” Logan snorted. “You purity-obsessed assholes are giving up the best parts of yourselves by suppressing-- never mind. All I’m sayin’ is, it does, actually, make it less real. Don’t seem like much worth fightin’ for.”

“We’re not fighting for one marriage,” Steve put in. “We’re fighting for our whole tribe. Hydra’s throwing aside the Covenants, and they’re not going to stop with the Avengers.” Tony wondered if that was Steve’s mutation, making his voice ring with sincerity like that. But it was the same speech he’d given the previous day, and Logan still wasn’t paying attention, just wolfing down his breakfast and grunting occasionally.

Tony pushed his plate away. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

 


	6. Consummation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about 95% smut, for those of you who aren't interested in such things.

Tony sat on the edge of the bed and started unlacing his boots. Bucky lingered by the door, his hand tucked behind him where he was leaning against it, and watched. “Tony.”

Tony glanced up, only for an instant, and then looked back down at his boots. “Hm?”

Bucky’s heart was pounding so hard it felt like he was going to throw up. He’d never been so nervous, even in the face of battle. “What that-- Logan. What he said. At breakfast.”

Tony’s lips thinned. “Don’t worry about it.”

“He will tell the others, if he hasn’t already,” Bucky persisted. “And the other tribes, when they arrive.”

“And we’ll tell them the same thing we told him,” Tony said. “They all know the marriage is just a pretext, anyway.”

“Or we could just--”

Tony’s head was already shaking. “That’s not necessary, you-- _Sundering_ , bad enough you were forced to marry me; you don’t have to sleep with me, too.”

_But I want to_. Tony wouldn’t believe it. What could Bucky say that would make him understand? “If... if it hadn’t been Hydra,” Bucky said carefully, “if it had been a tribe with honorable intentions, what would you have done with your bride?”

“If it had been a tribe with honorable intentions,” Tony growled, “then my bride wouldn’t have been drugged half-comatose and unable to finish the rites.” He yanked at his shirt and hissed as the movement pulled on his stitches.

Bucky crossed the floor and gently helped Tony out of it, carefully trying to avoid touching the wide wrapping he always wore around his chest, even to sleep. The apprentices had whispered about it when they thought neither Tony nor Bucky could hear them, speculating whether Bucky had been allowed to see what was under it. It was rumored that Tony’s mutation was a gaping hole in the center of his chest. Bucky thought that was unlikely, but couldn’t help looking at it anyway.

Tony caught Bucky staring, and put his hand over his chest as if to hide it even more than the wrap already did. He looked aside, shoulders hunching. “I would have done my best,” he said, more quietly, “to be a husband deserving of the title.”

“I was telling the truth, before,” Bucky confessed. “I don’t remember much of that day. I remember standing where I’d been told to stand. I remember the dark and the heat, and then I remember light and confusion and noise. And I remember _you_. Standing over me. Protecting me.” He crouched in front of Tony, so they were nearly nose-to-nose. “I’m not drugged now, Tony.”

Tony still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Bucky...”

“Say the words,” Bucky begged. “Not for _them_ , not for anyone else; just for us. _Pretend_ , just for tonight, and let me hear you say the words, so I can... So I can remember them. So I can answer them properly.” Tony looked up at that, eyes wide and dark in the dim light. Bucky wanted to soothe that wrinkle of hurt and confusion from his brow, to draw him into an embrace, to _touch_ him. Bucky didn’t have that right. Not yet.

But then Tony nodded, just a little. “Okay,” he said, shakily, and then again, only slightly steady. “Okay. I would... I would claim you...” He stopped, swallowing.

Bucky’s memories of the disastrous wedding were hazy, but he wanted this, wanted Tony, wanted to feel the weight of these words now. Even if -- _especially_ if -- Tony meant to dissolve their marriage as soon as Hydra had been dealt with. “Go on,” he whispered, his breath ghosting across Tony’s skin.

“Would claim you as my bride, to cherish as my own.” Bucky couldn’t resist touching the side of Tony’s face, just to see him turn his head to press into Bucky’s hand.

“All that is mine is yours, if...” Bucky couldn’t breathe with the strength of his wanting. His lungs were aching, burning, before Tony finally finished, “if you will consent to have me.”

“Yes.” It came out as half a sob of relief. He leaned close, and let his lips brush Tony’s. A chaste, sweet kiss for the imaginary Purifiers and clan heads to witness. And another, slower one for himself. “For so long as you cherish me I shall remain devoted to you,” he said, the completion of the ritual. It was a lie. He had lived three days at Tony’s side, now, and he would be devoted for the rest of his days, no matter what Tony did or said or felt.

Tony’s breath stuttered from his lips and his eyes opened wide, the pupils huge and dark with wanting. Wanting _him_ , and Bucky could have fallen on his knees to thank the gods of their ancestors. “Oh, skies above,” Tony swore softly, even as his hand cupped Bucky’s face. “Bucky, I...”

Bucky covered Tony’s hand to press it more firmly to his skin. “And what will you do now, husband?” he asked. His blood pounded through his veins so hard that each beat of his heart was a physical ache. “Will you finish claiming your bride?”

Tony’s breath caught, just a quick hitch, but it was an advantage that Bucky could press. “What did you dream of?” he whispered, holding Tony’s gaze. “What did you see, when you imagined your wedding night? Did you plan to undress me yourself, or did you want to sit back and watch?”

Tony’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips, but his eyes never wavered.

Bucky sat back on his heels and began to open his shirt, but when it was done, Tony sat forward, reaching out to push it off Bucky’s shoulders with one trembling hand. Bucky shivered at the brush of Tony’s fingers against his collarbone.

“How did you imagine me?” Bucky asked as the shirt dropped to the floor. He knelt up and laid his fingertips on Tony’s chest, over the wrapping cloth. Under it, Tony’s heart was racing. Bucky trailed his hand downward, and Tony didn’t stop him. Bucky tugged at the ties on Tony’s trousers. “Was I nervous? Shy? Wanton? How did it happen, in your dreams?” Bucky wondered. “Did you hold me down and take me hard to show me who I belong to? Teach me how best to please you? Or lie back and let me tend you, worship you?”

Even if Bucky had been a true son of Hydra, as soon as his days as a warrior had ended, he had become simply another commodity to be used or traded, like a barrel of water or a string of dried fish. But the wedding had been a trap, and while Bucky hadn’t been privy to all of Ophelia’s plans, he had known that his new husband would never survive long enough to demand the things she’d taught him. These last days, though, he had watched Tony and _imagined_ , and each scenario filled him with more longing than fear, more desire than distaste, more need than humiliation.

Tony caught Bucky’s hand, pulled it to his lips, but he was frowning. “It shouldn’t surprise me that those are the only options Hydra gave you,” he said. “Whether kind or cruel, they can only see you as a possession, a slave, a pet.” He closed his lips around Bucky’s index finger and sucked, licking at the sensitive pad and scraping his teeth over it, sending electric thrills down to pool in Bucky’s groin. “Don’t-- I don’t want that. I don’t want you to be some plaything who exists to serve me,” Tony said. “You’re one of us now. Again, but you would be, even without that, even if you really had been one of them. If we’re pretending this is real, then what I need is for you to feel... welcomed. To feel good. _Cherished_.”

That was... that was backwards, Bucky knew it was; it was the bride who was the supplicant before their husband’s tribe, another mouth to feed and therefore the one who must please rather than be pleased. And yet his dim, older memories held up the bride as a bringer of fresh blood that kept the mutations at bay, someone to be kept protected and content.

The two conflicting customs clashed in his thoughts: which was right? Which was better? Bucky wasn’t _actually_ bringing new genetic material to the Avengers -- even discounting the fact that he and Tony couldn’t reproduce, Bucky had been a member of the tribe to begin with. There was nothing new in him. But was Hydra’s version any more correct?

Tony didn’t seem to think so. Tony was-- was looking at him, brow furrowed in something like concern. “Bucky? You okay?”

Whichever rule they followed, Tony deserved Bucky’s undivided attention, at least. Bucky shook off the whirl of confusion. “I... memories re-settling. It’s a little disorienting.”

“All right,” Tony said. His brow didn’t smooth out much, though. “Do you-- We can just get some sleep.”

“No,” Bucky said, as firmly as he could. “No, I want... I want this. I’m here now, I won’t fade out again. Promise.”

Tony looked at him for another moment, and Bucky tried his best to look present and eager, both of which were _true_ , damn it, but Tony was still just _watching_ him. Bucky bit his lip. “Please,” he said. “Tony, I--”

And then Tony was kissing him.

Bucky had never been kissed like this before -- soft, almost hesitant touches of lip to lip, a flicker of tongue to tantalize the inner rim of Bucky’s mouth, a withdrawal that Bucky tried to chase after, wanting, _needing_ more. Tony gave it to him, hand cupping the base of Bucky’s skull, those strong, callused fingers dragging against the the nape of his neck. Tony tugged gently and their mouths finally slotted together, much to Bucky’s relief.

Tony tasted the shape of his mouth, and Bucky was as helpless as a kitten, unable to do more than cling to Tony’s arm and surrender to that hungry quest.

“Tony,” he gasped. He fumbled again for the ties on Tony’s trousers, pulling them loose and then trailing his fingers around Tony’s waist, teasing himself as much as Tony. “Tony, I need...”

“I know,” Tony said, voice rough and breathless. He reached down to return the favor, but hissed and winced when his injured arm stretched too far.

“Let me,” Bucky said, already yanking at the rest of his clothes. “Your arm is injured.”

Tony huffed a sigh. “And yours is _gone_ ,” he grumbled. “I told you, you’re not here to _serve_ me or--”

“I’m used to only having one,” Bucky retorted. More used to it than Tony was, at least. “And my stump doesn’t _hurt_ anymore. It’s not _service_ , it’s _common sense_.”

Tony grinned. “We’re Avengers,” he said. “Common sense is not something we know how to recognize.”

Bucky was startled into a bark of laughter. “With Steve in command, I can well believe it,” he chuckled. The levity dropped away like a bride’s veil, then, when he stood up to remove his pants.

He was naked, he realized suddenly, shockingly. Naked and very much aroused and standing for his husband’s inspection. He bit his lip, and made his arm hang loose at his side rather than try to cover himself. It was right and good that his husband should see him, and so he stood, and waited.

“Oh, you’re beautiful,” Tony breathed, and his voice was full of reverence, even awe, without a hint of mockery. He reached across the small distance between them and curled his hand over Bucky’s hip, drawing Bucky even closer, to stand between Tony’s knees, close enough that Tony’s breath puffed warm over Bucky’s stomach and cock.

Bucky shivered. He let his fingers slide through Tony’s thick, wavy hair. “You’re so _kind_ ,” he breathed.

Tony laughed. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m honest. You _are_ beautiful.” He looked up at Bucky’s face, though his hand began to trace idle designs on Bucky’s side. Before Bucky could guess what would happen next, he leaned in and licked delicately at the head of Bucky’s cock.

It was such a small touch, but it set him utterly on _fire_. “Tony,” he gasped. He could feel his eyes stretching wide in shock.

Tony smiled and did it again, tongue teasing around Bucky’s slit until Bucky’s breath was ragged and his knees felt weak.

“Oh, _Sundering_ ,” he groaned, “Tony, you...”

“Mmm, you taste good, too,” Tony purred. He closed his mouth over the head of Bucky’s cock.

Too much, it was _too much_. Bucky’s breath escaped in a choked sob. “Tony, I can’t-- I’m going to--”

Tony’s only response was to slide his lips down Bucky’s shaft, swallowing hard until the world washed away in an explosion of sensation.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. He wasn’t sure he ever _had_. He let himself be carried away on waves of pleasure so intense they were nearly pain.

When Bucky’s vision cleared again, Tony was leaning back on the bed, propped up on his one good arm, his pants tented over his arousal but loose at the waist, ready to fall off with the slightest tug. Sweet sky, he looked good enough to eat.

“Tony,” Bucky breathed, half-stunned by the pleasure still zinging through his body and the sheer beauty of his husband.

Tony looked pleased. Maybe a little proud. “You liked that?”

“Sundering, _yes_ ,” Bucky said. He reached out, and hesitated at the way Tony’s eyes snapped to watch his hand. “May I, can I... I want to see you,” Bucky confessed. “Touch you. Please.”

Tony arched up his hips to shove at his pants, and Bucky helped work them off. Tony’s cock made Bucky’s mouth water, thick and just long enough, rigid and dark with his wanting.

A moan slipped through Bucky’s lips and he had to lean in, inhaling the heavy, musky scent and touching his tongue to the swollen head. The precome beaded there tasted bitter and salty and was almost as fine as the shuddering sigh that Tony let out.

Bucky looked up through a veil of lashes. Tony’s eyes were wide and dark, his hand pressed against the center of his chest. “Bucky,” he whispered, wondering.

“Let me please you,” Bucky begged. “Not as a duty, because I have to, but because you’re beautiful. Because I _want_ to.”

Tony hesitated, searching Bucky’s face with those clever eyes. Finally, he nodded minutely. “If you-- yes.”

Bucky smiled and he knelt up to capture Tony’s mouth in a sweet kiss, teasing at Tony’s lips and then drawing away until Tony was chasing after him, trying get more of those kisses. “If I really want it?” Bucky whispered. “Is that what you were going to say, Tony?”

Tony shivered at the sound of his name, and nodded.

Bucky kissed along Tony’s jaw to his ear. “I can’t tell you what it means,” Bucky whispered, “that you’re so careful with me. That you want to make sure I’m sure. But you can stop worrying now, husband. I want it. I want _you_.”

Tony shivered again, and Bucky nudged gently until he laid back across the bed, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s face.

“That’s right,” Bucky crooned, petting down Tony’s face and neck and chest, careful to avoid the spot at the center of his chest that he still had covered, but seeking the hard nubs of Tony’s nipples, thumbing them through the cloth that covered them, one and then the other, until Tony’s breath caught and he arched into the touch. “That’s perfect. Want you to feel everything good.”

He kissed the tender skin along the insides of Tony’s thighs, testing the heat of them until he found the heavy throb of Tony’s pulse. He sucked at that spot, scraping it with his teeth and then soothing it with his tongue, until Tony was panting and twisting. “Bucky,” Tony whined, “please...”

Bucky hadn’t intended to drive Tony to beg, but it shot through him with the heat of a lightning strike aimed straight at his groin, and he groaned at the force of it. He licked straight up the length of Tony’s cock, relishing the way Tony shuddered and shook all over, trying to stay still. “Tell me,” Bucky said, fitting the words around his tongue as he tested each line and ridge and dip of Tony’s erection. “Tell me how you want me, husband.”

Tony arched off the bed entirely until Bucky leaned into his hip to pin him down. “Oh, _Sundering_ ,” Tony cursed, straining against Bucky’s hold. “Your _mouth_.”

“Is that what you want?” Bucky teased, pretending his own renewed desire wasn’t on the verge of burning him from the inside out. “You want my mouth on you? Here? Or here? Or _here_?” He punctuated each with a drag and flick of his tongue: along the vein, just under the head, across that dripping slit.

When Bucky finally let Tony’s cock slide between his lips and along his tongue, Tony threw his head back and _wailed_. He grabbed blindly with his good hand and tangled his fingers in Bucky’s hair, pulling it tight as he clenched his fist.

Bucky groaned, and Tony twitched and loosened his grip. Before he could pull away entirely, Bucky caught his hand and pulled it back into place, humming.

Tony hesitated. “Yeah?” Cautiously, he resumed that grip, and Bucky moaned with pleasure, and twisted his tongue against Tony’s cock, encouraging. “Oh,” Tony gasped. “Okay, yeah, you like that.”

_Like_ it? Sweet sky, he _loved_ it. It was perfect -- firm but not rough, not demanding. Tony scratched his scalp before pulling his hair taut again and Bucky all but purred like a cat before resuming his attention to Tony’s cock.

He licked and sucked and bobbed his head, nudging it right against the back of his throat, pulling back only an instant before he started to gag. Tony writhed under him, moaning and gasping and whispering a stream of praise and cursing and begging -- but he never once used that grip on Bucky’s hair to try to shove him down further, to pin him in place to be _used_.

The thought of being used by _Tony_ was... not at all unpleasant. Tony wouldn’t hurt him, or demand the impossible only to punish him for inevitable failure. Tony would, if anything, treat it as the gift it was, would use him gently, with careful reverence.

But this was perfect, too, the iron will that Tony was exerting to leave Bucky entirely in control. It made Bucky want to do his very best, to prove that he was worthy of Tony’s pleasure. He pushed as far down as he could and undulated his tongue until Tony was gasping with need, hand curling and uncurling in Bucky’s hair. Bucky matched that stuttering rhythm, as much as he could, and then Tony stiffened and came, flooding Bucky’s mouth and throat. He swallowed, bitter and salty and thick and perfect.

When he pulled off, Tony was limp and panting. “Sunder me,” Tony gasped. “That was... That was amazing.” He groaned. “I don’t think I can move.”

Bucky laughed, enjoying the way his voice rasped. He crawled onto the bed and wrapped his arm around Tony’s torso. Tony weighed less than Bucky; it wasn’t hard to pull him around so he was oriented correctly, at least, leaving room for Bucky to curl up beside him.

Before he could withdraw into his own space, Tony’s fingers laced with his, holding Bucky’s hand against Tony’s waist.

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. He was afraid to wonder what it meant, but he wasn’t about to question it, either. He wriggled a little closer, tucking his face against Tony’s neck, and let exhaustion claim him.

 


	7. First Dance

When Bucky woke, Tony was gone. Of course he was. Bucky had asked him to pretend, just for the night, and the night was over now. And while Bucky didn’t believe for an instant that it had _all_ been pretend, that didn’t mean that Tony actually wanted to _keep_ Bucky. You could want someone without loving them. Sundering, you could want someone without even _liking_ them. You could take them to bed and thoroughly enjoy yourself and still not want to wake up with them.

Bucky had warned himself not to get his hopes up, but the weight in his gut suggested that he hadn’t done a very good job of listening to that warning.

He allowed himself to lie in bed for a short while, breathing in the warm scent of Tony’s skin and the lingering tang of sex, remembering. Tony had made him feel wanted. Cherished. _Loved_.

He could spend the rest of his life at Tony’s feet, hoping to feel that way even once more.

But there was a war to prepare for, and it was Bucky’s duty to be of use to the tribe.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to go to the smithy, to present himself to Tony there in front of Tony’s apprentices, to let them all see the flush in his cheeks and neck, his swollen lips. To risk Tony seeing the helpless and doomed devotion in his eyes.

He went looking for Steve, instead. If his friend could not give him comfort, then at least his chief might give him work.

He found Steve at the edge of the compound borders, helping to shore up those innermost defenses. Bucky stepped up to Steve’s side, almost on automatic, and it didn’t take long before they fell into a rhythm. It was simple in a way that working in the smithy hadn’t been -- familiar and comfortable, and though the work was hard, it was also _easy_ , as was the silence between them, broken only by the needs of the task at hand.

Bucky lost track of time in the hypnotic flow of it, the sway of bodies and the heft and drop of the hammer. When Steve broke the rhythm and stepped back, Bucky startled and stared.

“Time for a break,” Steve said, and only then did Bucky realize how much the angle of the sun had changed. They’d been at it for hours. Steve smiled at Bucky’s expression. “I need to go back and do the rounds now, anyway,” he said. “Walk with me?”

Bucky nodded, and Steve waved to the foreman, a tiny woman Bucky hadn’t met before. She nodded and waved back, then began issuing orders to spread out the remaining workers, covering the gap in the line.

“Don’t feel bad,” Steve said, probably in response to Bucky’s sudden wave of guilt for walking away from a job unfinished and leaving others to pick up his lack. “Jane’s probably just as glad to be rid of me. I’m not good at following orders.” He said it with a wry grin.

“Is that how you made chief so fast?” Bucky asked, trying for a friendly jibe. “You wouldn’t listen to anyone else, so they figured you might as well be in charge?”

“Jerk,” Steve accused, but he sounded amused. They walked a little while in silence, and then Steve said, “Want to tell me?”

 _Not really, no._ But who else was he going to talk to? Bucky kicked at the ground. “Tony.”

Steve grunted. “He kick you out?”

“What? No!”

“You _want_ out? You could stay with me and Peggy for a while.”

Sundering, that might be even _worse_ , to start and end every day with that shining example of what Bucky couldn’t have. He shook his head quickly. “No. Gotta keep up appearances, an’ all. And if Hydra sends in a specialty worker--”

“Assassin,” Steve interrupted grimly. “Call a spade a spade, Buck.”

Bucky sighed but didn’t argue. “--then Tony’s high on the target list, and there’s no one else in there to protect him.”

Steve looked at him sidelong. Bucky focused on the dusty path they were walking. “How likely are they to do that?” Steve asked after a moment.

Bucky shrugged. _Now that they don’t have me anymore..._ “Dunno. Depends on who ends up in charge of Ophelia’s bunch. It’s... not likely, though. The Avengers don’t demoralize easily, they just get pissed off. They might try for Bruce, I guess, since he’s such a threat, but that bunker of his would be damn near impossible to get into. So unless they think they can get the whole tribal council in one blow and destroy our entire leadership, it’s probably not worth the risk.”

Steve nodded calmly at the assessment, as if he’d already known it. Maybe he had; Steve wasn’t anyone’s dummy. “You want me to talk to Tony for you?”

Damn it, Bucky’d thought Steve had gotten diverted. The man was relentless. “No. You’ll just make it all worse.”

“I appreciate your confidence in my diplomacy,” Steve said drily. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Bucky said, a touch sharply. “We just want... different things.”

“What kind of different things?”

Bucky growled, irritated. “I want it to be real and he doesn’t,” he snapped. “No fix for that, Steve. No diplomacy’s gonna help. We’re gonna get through this mess and if we’re still alive at the end of it, he’s gonna cut me loose.” It hurt to say aloud.

Steve didn’t have a peppy answer for that, at least. Small mercies. They were nearly back to the compound proper when Steve slowly said, “I think that Tony... is afraid to let it be real. He’s wanted it for a long time, and failed match after match, and he’s just... He thinks he _can’t_ have it, that if he tries to hold onto it, onto _you_ , then it’ll be taken away.” Steve squeezed Bucky’s shoulder. “Hang in there, and I think he might come around.”

“Sure. Thanks, Steve.” Bucky _was_ grateful for Steve’s attempt. But Bucky knew what Tony had dreamed of, and it wasn’t Bucky. It had been on his face in the instant he’d pulled the veil from Bucky’s head, and he’d said it with words at that first meeting: Tony wanted more than a spouse; he wanted a _family_. He wanted a bride who could give him children. Bucky had seen the way Tony treated his apprentices, the way he watched them with shining pride and a hint of melancholy.

Bucky could be a lot of things, if Tony wanted them, but a mother was not one of them.

***

Tony had been aware of the apprentices all day, whispering to each other in hushed tones as they went about their work. He knew he was being especially morose and sullen, but he seemed unable to shake it off.

 _Pretend_ , Bucky had said, and Tony had known that moment, that night, was all he could ever have. He’d done it. Of course he had -- Bucky’s expression had been vulnerable, _raw_ , and Tony had been forced to wonder how long it had been since Bucky had been touched with love or even kindness.

But what Bucky wanted from him was _pretend_ , was a false front, was only comfort for so long as they had to maintain the façade, or perhaps until he found something more real, and Tony could. Not. Do it.

Not when he wanted so much more. Not when he’d felt Bucky’s touch, tasted Bucky’s skin and mouth, seen Bucky in the moment of pleasure. Not when he’d fallen asleep with Bucky’s arm wrapped around him, holding him protectively close, Bucky’s breath a gentle, unbearable tickle against the back of his neck.

He’d woken at sunrise, warm and content, sated in body and relaxed in his mind, and opened his eyes to Bucky’s face close to his on the pillow.

Bucky had been slack with sleep, hair tousled, mouth curved into a small smile. He was beautiful, and Tony wanted to brush that hair back from his face, kiss him awake and then pick up where they’d left off the night before, a slow exploration of bodies and touches and--

Tony had left before he let himself think about it too much, before he gave in to the temptation. Before he’d begun to think that one night of pleasure meant that their marriage was anything but temporary. Anything but _pretend_.

“Tony?”

He looked up, and then down. “Harley,” he returned, pretending annoyance. “What do you want?”

Harley grinned, not in the least fooled. “Cap wants you to come to th’ mess. He said to tell you Bucky could use a hand.”

He wanted to refuse, but he couldn’t, could he? The game was still on. “All right,” he sighed. “I’m on my way. And why are you hanging around underfoot in the mess, anyway, instead of in school?”

The look Harley gave him was distinctly unimpressed. “School let out _ages_ ago,” he said. “We’re on half-days on account’a so much work needin’ to be done. The Midgrades are packing kits and doing stuff for the healers, and the Topgrades are helping the cooks, doing guide duty for the visiting tribes, and running messages. ‘Cept there weren’t any Tops around, an’ I’m _almost_ a Top, so Cap sent me instead. Anything to get out of rolling bandages with Mom.” He grinned, then pulled a face. “Rebecca got to just _go play_.”

Tony snorted and ruffled the kid’s hair. “Your sister is four,” he pointed out. “If they tried to put her to work, she’d probably cause more problems than help, and then they’d just ask you to clean it up. It’s better this way; trust me. Come on, I’m not leaving you here to pester Kamala and Miles; they have enough work to do.”

The mess was crowded in a way it almost never was, between meals. The healers assistants, including Harley’s mother, Maya, had taken over several long tables at the back for their preparations. As Harley had said, a gaggle of six-to-ten-year-olds were with them, rolling bandages and decanting things into traveling bottles, some more neatly than others. Some craftsmen had claimed another knot of tables to assemble kits of essential gear for the fighters and their support teams. And a big chunk of the room was swarming with representatives of the visiting tribes -- several more had arrived while Tony had been sulking in his workshop, apparently -- talking and laughing and arguing.

Tony caught a glimpse of Bucky surrounded by half a dozen visitors before Steve intercepted them. He thanked Harley earnestly and by name, which seemed to almost make up for having to go back to helping the healers. Once Harley had retreated, Steve turned to Tony. “How are things going on your end?”

“We’re almost caught up,” Tony said.

Steve nodded acceptance. “Natasha’s back. She says Hydra is mobilizing. I’ll make the announcement at dinner, but we’re heading out in the morning.”

“I was hoping they’d give us more time,” Tony said. “What’s the plan?”

“That depends. Natasha says they didn’t just dig hiding holes for the ambush -- they have a whole network of tunnels there that goes right toward Hydra territory. She didn’t follow any long enough to see where they come out, but it’s got to be somewhere useful. Have you had time to make any more of those triggerbombs?”

Tony rubbed at the hard knob at the center of his chest. Triggerbombs made his mutation ache, but he couldn’t deny the need. “I’ve got plenty of casings,” he said, “but I don’t have enough of the actual explosive to fill more than a handful.”

Steve sighed and nodded. “I’m negotiating with Shield for it,” he promised. “But they’re being... stingy.”

“Why?” Tony had known that Shield would want to stay neutral in this dispute -- they didn’t have a lot to gain from either Hydra or the Avengers taking over the river plain -- but why would they refuse an honest trade? “We sent them Rhodey,” he added. “They _owe_ us.”

Steve chuckled, though there wasn’t a lot of humor in it. “They have brides from Hydra in their ranks, as well,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s not complicated,” Tony argued. “They don’t have an actual _alliance_ , and Hydra’s spat on the Compacts; Shield is bound to stand with us!”

“That’s the other reason I wanted you.” Steve nodded toward Bucky and his entourage.

“Keeping up appearances,” Tony said wearily.

“Only in part,” Steve said. “Mostly, I think he just needs some honest support. They’ve been grilling him pretty hard about the wedding, and I can’t protect him from all of it. Not to mention, I can’t even be with him the whole time; I have things I have to do.”

Tony couldn’t argue with that logic. And the thought of Bucky being forced to answer question after question about that day filled him with rage. “I’ll take care of it,” he told Steve, and headed in that direction before Steve could respond.

“Afternoon,” he said as he closed in, affable but cool. Bucky looked at him with a bleak, almost desperate stare. “Bucky, honey, you look exhausted.” He pulled Bucky up against his side, and Bucky sagged against him in visible relief.

Bucky was shivering all over as he tucked his head down against Tony’s chest, hiding from the visitors. “I’ll be okay,” he managed, but it sounded tremulous.

Tony petted his hair solicitously and raised his eyebrow at the visiting representatives. “Why are you hounding my spouse?” he demanded. “He’s still healing, for sky’s sake.”

“We weren’t _hounding_ him,” said one of them, a slender man with a shaved head. “We just wanted to make sure we were understanding the situation fully.”

“What’s to understand?” Tony snapped. “They accepted our proposal of alliance and offered a bride to seal it, and then they brought weapons to the wedding, and not of the ritual ‘be good to the child of our tribe’ variety. They dealt in poor faith and broke the truce of the wedding ground! What could possibly be hard to understand about that?”

Bucky straightened a little, looking up at him in alarm. “Tony,” he whispered. “Don’t-- it’s okay. Play nice. It’s not worth getting worked up about.”

Tony growled. “I’m not going to play nice if they’re pestering you,” he said pointedly. “Because you absolutely _are_ worth it.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide, but then he flushed and looked down. “As you say, husband,” he murmured, more subservient than he’d acted even fresh from Hydra’s hands -- but his hand caught Tony’s and tightened warningly. There was some undercurrent here that Tony wasn’t aware of.

He took a breath, forcing himself to calm, to _think_. He put his hand over Bucky’s in a show of new-married affection. “Come on,” he urged. “You need to rest before dinner.” He threw the visitors a polite but cool smile. “If you’ll excuse us.”

Half of them sprouted smirks that suggested they had an idea what _resting_ entailed, but the shave-headed man was watching them carefully, eyes on Bucky far more than on Tony. He was dangerous, Tony thought.

As soon as they were out of sight of the mess hall, Bucky straightened, releasing his hold on Tony’s hand. The weather was warm, but Tony still felt chilled by its loss. “What’s his angle?” Tony asked.

“He’s trying to sell the line that the attack was all Ophelia, and since she’s dead, there’s no reason to believe Hydra’s going to come after us again, or any need to retaliate.”

“Well, that’s just bullshit,” Tony said. “Is he getting anywhere with it?”

“I’m not sure,” Bucky said. “At least one other Shield agrees with him, but I’m not sure about the others. They’re hard to read.”

“Yeah, Shield is hard to pin down,” Tony agreed. “I think it’s something in their water. I notice they didn’t send Rhodey as one of their reps, either. That _could_ be because they want to maintain at least an illusion of neutrality, or it could be because they’ve already made up their minds and don’t want him to alter their course any. The other tribes buying it?”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not yet. We need to move soon, though, before the Shields start to talk them around.”

“Tell Steve,” Tony said. “He’s planning to head out tomorrow anyway, but a sense of urgency never hurts.” They’d reached the door to their quarters. Tony hesitated, remembering the knowing looks they’d been given. From the red on the back of Bucky’s neck, he was remembering it, too.

“You get some rest,” Tony said quickly, before he could give in to the urge to suggest they meet those expectations. “I’ve got some work to do, but I’ll. I’ll see you later.”

 


	8. Bachelor Party

The Avengers had three dozen warriors, ranging from desperately green to battle-hardened; with them were another two dozen fighters from supporting tribes -- the Howlers, the Four, the Defenders, and the Guardians. Shield was still sitting the fence, but the X had contributed five specialists whose mutations were especially useful in a raid. Helen had joined the group as well, to speak for the support teams.  Each and every tribesman was kitted up and gathered in the training field in the grey unlight of predawn to go over the plan.

Tony’s kit was bulkier than most, and though he stood next to Steve and listened attentively, his mind was churning over his own part in the attack, which was a separate, more stealthy raid with a small, hand-picked team. Arguably, it was the more important of the two, but no one else would know that.

Steve’s warriors would provide a distraction while Tony and his team would take the tunnels that Natasha had found into Hydra territory and set some of Tony’s explosives to take out Hydra’s supplies and important locations.

Going with Tony were Natasha, because she’d mapped the nearest tunnels; Raven, an X specialist whose mutation gave her color-shifting skin like a chameleon’s; and Bucky, because he knew how Hydra laid out their settlements and camps.

Tony had wanted to refuse when Bucky volunteered. Dimly, he knew Bucky’s understanding would be very useful, but most of him just couldn’t stomach the idea of putting Bucky back in harm’s way. Bucky should stay behind, help the healers or the scouts or the messengers... But Steve had glared and Tony had folded, knowing that he couldn’t argue this with logic, and that their situation was too dire to allow emotional arguments sway.

The sky was only beginning to turn pink when they left the compound’s fortifications, more than a hundred strong, warriors and healers and runners, the scouts having gone ahead to play their part. Steve marched proudly at their head, as a leader should. Tony let his pace vary, playing his part as Steve’s second-in-command as he checked on equipment and bolstered morale.

He traded jibes with Carol and Peter and the rest of their squad as he made last-minute adjustments to gear. Jan was with the other runners, conducting moving drills; Tony let her drag him into a few exercises before moving on. Sam was marching with Steve and Peggy, and would act in Tony’s place until Tony had returned from his mission of sabotage. No one mentioned the possibility that Tony might not return.

Tony climbed up into the healers’ wagon to keep their spirits up, trading quips with Helen and teasing a young fighter who’d twisted her ankle only an hour into the journey. He found Harley’s mother, Maya, and scolded her teasingly for having left her children behind to go to war, until she pointed out that his arm was only barely healed enough to be out of a sling. The healers’ laughter chased him out of the wagon, but he grinned as he went.

No Bruce, this time, for which Tony was grateful. Bruce’s massive body belied his gentle soul. He would protect those who remained behind, if necessary, but if the warriors did their jobs, the wouldn’t have to. There was a cluster of lesser chemists from a variety of tribes, all of whom had been taught by Bruce how to create the concoctions the Avengers relied on in a fight. Tony ended up in a discussion with a tall, lanky man from the Four who was excited about the opportunity to trade information. Tony’s knowledge of chemistry was good, but he had to duck out again after only a few minutes.

It took them most of the day to reach the no man’s land. Steve planned to set up camp here, a place to rest before the hard push into Hydra’s territory in the morning. Tony’s small team would depart immediately after sundown, however; the tunnels that led into Hydra territory were not fully mapped, and it would be slow going.

Tony and Bucky sat with Steve and Peggy to eat dinner and go over the plan again, as well as contingencies for every eventuality that they could imagine. Bucky was businesslike, almost brusque. Tony was relieved, if somewhat sad. Win or lose, this was the end for them. Either there would be no need to keep pretending, or they were dead, or worse.

It was as good a time as any to let the gentle fiction of their marriage fade into dust.

There was something ironic in having to face that thought so soon after the marriage had taken place, within sight of a low, scraggly tree that still had scraps of the wedding tent stuck in its branches.

***

They didn’t duck into the tunnel entrance until well after sunset, and it was dark in there. Very, very dark. There was no moon, there were no stars, there were no campfires. They had a couple of lanterns with them, but Natasha insisted that they wait until they’d gone around a couple of bends before lighting them.

Bucky kept his hand on the rough-hewn wall and tried his best to keep up with Natasha and Raven and Tony.

Tony, who had barely looked at him since they’d left the compound, even through that excruciating meal with Steve and Peggy. Bucky had been on his best behavior, determined to prove to Tony that he wouldn’t be overbearing or embarrassing, that he wouldn’t beg for a touch or a kind word or--

Tony was done with him, and that was all there was to it. Bucky could almost wish he hadn’t gotten his memories back. At least as a Hydra warrior, he had been wanted. Of use.

He was of use now, he reminded himself, and he could _not_ fuck it up, or Hydra would wind up taking half the Avengers as slaves and killing the rest -- almost certainly including both Steve _and_ Tony.

But it was _dark_ and Bucky had never liked the dark much, not when he was young, not when he’d been a warrior in training and the other trainees had mocked him for it, not when he’d become a warrior. The three days he’d spent trapped in the basement of a collapsed building on the edge of Sundered territory hadn’t helped at all -- he wondered if avoiding that memory was the reason he’d taken so long to remember everything that had happened before Hydra had found him. It hadn’t taken Hydra long to find out about his feelings on the matter, either, and use it against him. He’d rather be beaten than locked in a dark room.

He wanted to hold Tony’s hand instead of the wall. If he’d had two hands, he would have done both. The dark was pressing in on him physically, squeezing his chest and making his eyes ache. He didn’t need a lot of light, but he needed _some_ , and he _was not_ going to act the fool but he _did not like the dark at all_.

Finally, Natasha decided they’d gone far enough and lit her lantern. It felt like the air rushed back into the space with the light. For one disconcerting moment, Raven looked like a hole in the air, so dark that she was merely a shape with eyes, and then her camouflage rippled into something that matched the rocky walls. Bucky sagged against the wall and tried not to be too obvious about the way he was panting in relief.

They were no more than an hour or so into their trip when the narrow tunnel opened up into a much wider -- and obviously much _older_ tunnel, the rocky walls and floor darkened and smoothed with years -- even decades -- of use. Tony made them wait while he dug a map out of his kit and muttered through a handful of calculations.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, stabbing at the map. “We’re right about here, still in the middle of neutral ground. Hydra’s been traveling under it for _years_. I bet if we follow this long enough, we’ll find some more branches that lead toward other tribal territories. Or, more accurately, where other tribes _used_ to be, before Hydra wiped them out and took over.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Natasha said solemnly. She ran a hand down the rough edge of the tunnel from which they’d emerged. “This took time to carve out, though. Even with slave labor, they’ve been moving toward us for _years_.”

“Which begs the question,” Bucky said, feeling heavy, “of whether they knew who I was from the beginning or if the Avengers were already their next target, and I just moved the timetable up.”

“The latter, I should think,” Raven said. “If they had been more patient, they could have emerged within your borders, with all your lookouts facing the wrong way, and decimated the compound before the alarm was even raised. Then they realized who you were, and got greedy.”

“I agree,” Tony said. “Not much we can do about it now, though, aside from being careful. Natasha, which way from here?"

The older tunnels had more branches and twists; with no sky to navigate by, Bucky was lost within a couple of hours. Natasha never slowed, though; had she mapped the tunnels this far in? Or perhaps her mutation gave her an infallible sense of direction. It was more specialized than Bucky’s and Steve’s boosted strength and quick healing, but a useful enough mutation, in any case.

Perhaps the X were onto something, with their deregulation of breeding. Their numbers were still small, though, because deregulation came with it a vastly increased chance of stillbirth and infant mortality. It wasn’t a choice that Bucky would make, given the option. But it gave him something to think about, at least, that wasn’t an endless refrain of aching over Tony.

Another hour, and the tunnels became a warren, and even Natasha was hesitating over the turns now. An infallible sense of direction wasn’t much use if you didn’t know which paths would dead-end or loop back on themselves. She was paused, considering one multi-faceted branch, when Tony suddenly broke away and strode down one dark and narrow corridor.

“Tony!” Bucky hissed. “What the hell!”

Tony waved carelessly, not looking back. “Wait there.”

Like that was going to happen. Bucky hurried after him, and it was a testament to his worry and bewilderment that he was only a little relieved to note Natasha and Raven following with the lantern.

Tony stopped in front of an actual door, the only one they’d seen in this place, his hand resting gently on the wood. “In there,” he murmured. “Nat--?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, but she set to work unlocking the door. That wasn’t mutation, Bucky was sure, but honed skill. It swung open a moment later, and Bucky found himself staring, dumbfounded, at the pile of wealth before them.

There were weapons -- pistols and rifles and things Bucky couldn’t name but which were as elegant and deadly in their lines as a venomous snake. There were talking-boxes, and boxes with screens in them, and more boxes with buttons covered in arcane alphabets. There were devices that Bucky could not even remotely comprehend, things that made him want to recoil in horror. Things that made him want to touch, to cradle them and beg them to tell him their secrets, and those were probably the most terrible of all.

All of it was ancient, pre-Sundering tech. All of it was dusty and rusting and powerless.

Some of it might be salvageable. Tony’s own pre-Sundering pistol was evidence of that. Still, it was a vast wealth of coin that could not -- _must_ not -- be spent.

Raven and Natasha were frozen in the doorway, staring. “How long have they been gathering all this?” Tony mused aloud, though he obviously did not expect an answer. “Since the Sundering itself, by the look of it.”

“How did you find it?” Bucky realized, too late, that it was a question he should not have asked.

Tony visibly flinched, and then squared his shoulders, a posture Bucky had seen a hundred, a _thousand_ times from Steve. _I may lose, but I won’t back down_. “Oh, you know,” Tony said nonchalantly. “Like calls to like.”

***

Shit, shit, _shit_. Middle of a mission and Tony had gotten distracted, had let the seductive hum of the tech pull him, like a dragon who couldn’t resist the siren song of treasure. To be fair, he’d never encountered a stash of tech so big before, not even his father’s hidden trove. It was _beautiful_.

And it was a _disaster_. Now Bucky knew that Tony had an affinity for tech. And Tony had been half-hypnotized, about three breaths from baring his link and _connecting_ it all. Which was just _ridiculous_ ; what would he even _do_ with it? He couldn’t carry it all. He couldn’t even carry a tenth of it all! Connecting to tech and then leaving it would feel like leaving behind a beloved pet.

Worse, it would reveal the link in his chest, and while Bucky might be okay with knowing that Tony’s mutation helped Tony find and “repair” pre-Sundering tech in theory, he definitely wouldn’t like the link. Few did. It was annoying at best, and at worst, creepy and unsettling. Worse, it meant it wouldn’t be long before Bucky realized that meant it was Tony’s fault that Bucky had fallen into Hydra’s hands.

Not that it mattered, Tony reminded himself, what Bucky thought. Bucky was ready to be rid of him anyway.

He took a couple of breaths, steadying himself. Natasha watched, impassive. She knew about the link; she’d seen Tony connect to tech before, and she was one of few who weren’t particularly bothered by it. Tony had thought more than once that it was a shame they were a disastrous blood combination. “Right,” he said when he’d gotten himself back under control, forced himself to ignore the plaintive call of all the tech. “Can you find your way back here, Nat?”

She gave him a dry look. Of course she could. No one had ever been able to trick Nat’s sense of direction; it was impressive that these tunnels had even slowed her. “We’ll want to come back for this,” she agreed.

Raven made a face. “Messing around with pre-Sundering tech will get your entire compound Sundered,” she warned.

It would be true, if they didn’t have Tony. But there was no need to advertise that fact. “Fine words from a tribe that tries to _combine_ mutations.”

Raven sniffed disdainfully. “Mutation is the natural order of things,” she said. “It’s how we evolve as a species.”

“There’s nothing natural about Sundered mutations,” Tony said.

“While the Sundering itself was unnatural,” Raven corrected, “the combination of Sundered DNA is a perfectly--”

“Save it,” Natasha hissed. “We’ve got a job to do.”

Tony swallowed his arguments. He should have known better; he was the one who was nominally in charge. The stockpile of tech had him more rattled than he’d thought. “Sorry,” he muttered. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

 


	9. Bridal Shower

Natasha led them through the maze of tunnels with increased confidence. Tony wondered if she’d picked out a pattern that he hadn’t seen, or if they were close enough to the exit that she could sense it. Or if there was some other factor at play. He was just about to ask when a half-dozen bodies stepped into their path, each holding a readied weapon. Front and center was Johann, his trademark helmet gleaming in the lamplight.

_Oh, Sundering._ Tony backed away a few steps, bumping into Bucky, who was as unmoveable as a wall. “Bucky?” Tony glanced back at him. 

Bucky was facing back the way they’d come: three more Hydra had flanked them. Bucky’s eyes were fixed on one of the biggest men Tony had ever seen, even bigger than Steve.

_Skies save us._

“So, the good Captain sends his lackeys to sneak up on us,” Johann purred. “Did you think we would leave our passages unguarded?”

“Well, we hoped,” Tony said. He tugged his hammer free. Natasha and Bucky had already drawn their knives. Raven took up a fighting stance that seemed ludicrous against so many weapons, but Tony had watched the X at their fight practice and had no doubt she could hold her own.

“Brock,” Bucky said to the big guy blocking their retreat. “You don’t want to do this.”

“You know, I think I do,” the guy -- Brock -- said. He grinned viciously.

“We were  _friends,"_ Bucky insisted. 

“Winter was my friend,” Brock said. “You’re just a one-armed Avenger.”

“Enough!” Johann snapped, and jumped forward, long knife already swinging.

The melee that followed was brief and brutal, as such close-quarters fighting tended to be. Natasha slammed a fighter into the wall, knocking him senseless, and drove a blade into another woman’s shoulder, rendering her arm useless.

Raven took out three more in a terrifying blur, though a spray of blood suggested one of them had tagged her in the process. Tony didn’t dare look back, but from behind him sounded a grunt and a thump and Bucky taunted, “Not bad for a one armed Avenger, huh?”

Tony stepped forward and swung the hammer from below, gathering momentum that Johann wouldn’t be able to block without sacrificing his weapon or his arm. He did neither, simply stepping back, away from the swing.

But Tony had held this hammer since he was a child barely strong enough to lift it. More than anything else, it was an extension of himself. He stepped forward again, the hammer still moving, and though Johann was fast, Tony managed to clip the underside of the helmet, cracking it.

That was something of a surprise; one glancing blow shouldn’t have done that much damage. Either Tony had gotten lucky, or the helmet was brittle and overworked, more decorative than protective. He wound up for another swing, trusting Bucky and Natasha to guard his back as he stepped deeper into the fray.

Johann had dropped his weapon, though, and was trying to hold the helmet together with both hands as the brittle metal crumbled around his head. It defied his attempt, falling away to reveal a repulsive skull-like visage, red and glistening as if it had been dipped in blood, eyeballs floating gruesomely in the hollow sockets.

Even the other Hydra hesitated at the sight. “Sunder me,” Tony cursed.

Johann gave up trying to hide himself and instead planted his feet to stand straight and tall. “No,” he said triumphantly. “Sunder  _ me." _

“You’ve deliberately exposed yourself,” Raven said. Her eyes were wide and terrified. “You... You went into the Sundered Lands and  _ exposed _ yourself. Do you know what could have happened?”

“Caution is for the weak,” Johann snarled. “I’ve unlocked the true potential of my body. I’ve made myself what I was always meant to be.”

“You’ve made yourself a  _ monster," _ Raven said. She leaped, kicking-- and Johann caught her ankle and threw her down the tunnel, farther than Tony could have thrown a pebble.

“I’ve made myself  _ powerful," _ Johann roared. “And soon, the rest of my warriors shall follow!  Finally, we will realize the vision of our ancestors, and all who do not join us will become our slaves!”

Natasha grabbed Tony’s wrist.  _ "Run!" _

Tony didn’t waste another second, leaving Johann to posture for the still-stunned Hydra. Bucky followed close in their wake, barely pausing to scoop Raven up from where she’d landed on the floor. They’d already turned the first corner when they heard Johann bellowing, “Fools! Go after them!”

Natasha’s unerring sense of direction served them well; even the Hydra couldn’t track the way they twisted through the labyrinthine corridors of the tunnels. Finally, when the shouting and stamping of running feet was only a distant echo, they pulled up into a narrow alley and dimmed the lantern’s light as much as they could without extinguishing it entirely.

Panting for breath, Tony asked, “Raven, how badly hurt are you?”

“Just bruised,” she whispered. “I can run.”

“Good,” Tony said. “You and Natasha are the fastest of us, and between Nat’s sense of direction and your camouflage, you two have the best chance of making it back to the main force and warning them what we’re up against. I’ll get Bucky hidden somewhere safe and then lead them away from you all.”

“Tony...” Natasha sounded profoundly unhappy.

“No,” Bucky said flatly. “I can distract as well as you can, and I’m not leaving you. You need someone to protect you.”

“Bucky--”

“We don’t have time to argue it,” Raven said. “Give us the spare lantern.”

Tony fumbled in his pack for it and turned it over. “Be careful,” he said.

Natasha’s hand found his and squeezed, nearly to the point of pain. “Will you be all right?”

“Always,” Tony promised. “We’ll be right behind you.”

The women had been gone for no more than a dozen breaths when Bucky said, “I volunteered for this, Tony. Why are you trying to protect me?”

_ Because you’re worth more than I am, _ Tony wanted to say. But it didn’t matter; if Johann was deliberately Sundering himself -- if he was ready to expose himself as Sundered, even if Tony had forced his hand -- then there was no choice. Every possible resource had to be brought to bear against that threat.

Every. Possible. Resource.

Tony closed his eyes and  _ felt _ \-- and there it was, the stockpile they’d left, thankfully closer than he had expected. “All right,” he said, pushing aside what it would mean for Bucky to see all of him. There was no place in this for personal wishes. “Come on, I’ve got an idea.”

The Hydra were smarter than Tony had given them credit for: two warriors were stationed in front of the tech room now, guarding it. They rushed Bucky and Tony as soon as they came into sight.

Bucky tripped the first, and he went down in a tangle of flailing limbs, knocking the lantern from Tony’s hand even as Tony snapped out a kick toward the second.

The fight was over quickly, but when Tony picked the lantern back up, it flickered and then died.

“Oh no,” Bucky whispered. “Oh no oh no oh no,  _ Tony...” _

“Hang on,” Tony muttered. He felt around for the Hydra they’d left on the floor, dead or unconscious. They had to have some kind of light, didn’t they? But if they did, Tony couldn’t find it. No, wait; they’d had goggles. Night-seeing goggles. Tony stripped the goggles from the nearest body, but they failed to work. He didn’t know how to turn them on, and in the dark, without the link to guide him, it would take precious time they didn’t have.

Behind him, Bucky’s breathing was speeding up. “Oh Sundering,” Bucky croaked, half-panicked already. “Tony, where are you? I can’t--”

“I’m right here,” Tony said, scrambling to pull his shirt off, to unwind the wrap that covered his link.

When he finally freed it, the hum of the tech behind the door became a rushing roar, like the presence of a waterfall. The narrow tunnel flooded with its light, eerie and blue and nothing like natural. Bucky’s eyes fastened on it, watering from the sudden change in light. “What... What is it?”

“My mutation,” Tony said shortly. “Come on, someone will have heard the noise and guessed where we are.” He nodded toward the tech room. It was locked again, of course, but it didn’t matter; Tony had the link out anyway. He laid a hand over the lock and jiggled the door gently, whispering to it of cooperation. A moment later, it fell open.

He opened the door, and in the light of the link, it seemed each piece of tech was more eager than the last to capture his attention, to beg for Tony’s attention. But the one that caught his eye was what looked like top half of a man built out of metal.  _ That. _ That, he had a use for.

***

The instant they walked through the door, it was like Bucky ceased to exist. Tony went straight to the stacked tech, trailing one hand over each piece as he murmured to it softly in a language Bucky didn’t know, though it sounded like the same -- language? Incantation? -- he’d used on the door. He stopped in front of a statue of a man made out of metal -- well, half a man, anyway. He hummed to it, touched it all along its seams and joints, caressing the metal with the same careful, loving touch he’d given Bucky a few nights ago.

It might have been strange or weirdling or frightening, but everything was bathed in that beautiful, soft blue glow that came from the thing on Tony’s chest, a light that seemed to whisper of belonging, of care taken, of  _ home. _ Bucky couldn’t feel uneasy with that glow curled around him like a protective aura.

Tony took the statue’s arm as if he were going to lead it somewhere, like escorting an elder or an injured person to the infirmary -- and the arm fell off into his hand. He smiled broadly and... cooed at the statue, patted it fondly and said more of those strange words in what was unmistakably a tone of admiration and praise. It would be completely irrational of Bucky to feel jealous of a broken metal statue, so that was definitely not what he felt.

“This is your mutation?” Bucky asked, slightly desperate to remind Tony that he still existed.

Tony flinched a little, and Bucky wondered if he  _ had _ forgotten that Bucky was there. “Yeah,” he said quietly, still stroking and touching the arm he was holding. “Anything metal with moving parts, anything that needs a power source, I can... link with, talk to. Influence.” He hesitated, then added, “Heal.”

“That’s amazing, Tony.” Tony didn’t look at him, just shrugged. “It is,” Bucky insisted. “And so useful!”

“Sure,” Tony said through clenched teeth. “So useful that as soon as I’d manifested the ability, my father sent warriors into the Sundered Lands specifically to bring back things for me to heal. He had some grand notion of restoring the glory of the Avengers, not much less insane than Johann, out there. And what did that get us? Three dead -- and one more lost and presumed dead -- before he was finally forced to give up on the idea.” For an aching moment, Tony met Bucky’s eyes. “It’s my fault they had you.”

“No,” Bucky said. “No, Tony, that’s not your fault. Me, the ones who died, that’s not on you. That’s on your dad, maybe, for sending us into the Sundered Lands, or on Chief Phillips for allowing it, or on  _ us, _ for not being careful enough. And Hydra taking me -- that’s on  _ Hydra. _ It might have been  _ because _ of you, but it’s never been your fault. I can’t blame you for it, and if I can’t blame you, then you can’t blame yourself.”

Tony huffed, not quite a snort of disbelief, but something close to it. “Maybe you can’t, but I most certainly can. But now isn’t the time to discuss it,” he continued, overriding Bucky’s protest. He held up the metal arm from the statue. “How would you like to have an arm again?”

Bucky looked from Tony to the arm, and then back at Tony. “I guess I’d look better with something in my sleeve,” he said slowly. He hadn’t thought Tony was much bothered by his stump.

“I wasn’t going after aesthetics,” Tony dismissed. “Though this  _ will _ look pretty amazing. No, I was thinking more along the lines of functionality.”

Bucky looked at the metal arm again. “I guess you could tie it to my shoulder and control it with your link, but--” It would throw him off-balance, and it had taken him long enough to learn to balance without his arm in the first place. Not to mention that if Tony had to control the arm for him, it wouldn’t do much good.

“I’m not explaining this right,” Tony sighed. “Look, human nerves operate on tiny bits of electricity. I can’t  _ control _ a human,” he added quickly. “Thank the skies. There’s not enough electricity for me to work with. But I can get this arm to accept input from  _ your _ nerves. It ought to work... pretty closely to a real arm.”

“Really?”

“I’m sure I can make it accept your input,” Tony said. “I’ve been experimenting with a responsive armor, when I have time, and that’s the easier part of it. You won’t have sensation, and it might be a little bit slow, though, so don’t try to do anything fancy with it, at least not right off.”

“That’s amazing, Tony.” It was. Having two arms -- two  _ hands _ \-- again sounded wonderful, even if it came with a few caveats. “What do I have to do?” Bucky asked. “And how much will it hurt?”

Tony shrugged. “Just let me at your shoulder and sit there while I rig a way to attach it. And... I don’t know. Hopefully not much? We can stop pretty much anytime, if it gets too much.”

Bucky’s heart was pounding. “Okay,” he said, and stripped off his shirt. He could endure a lot of pain, he knew. At least this pain would be worth it.

Tony used a roll of bandages and his belt to fasten the metal arm to Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s a kludge,” he muttered, adjusting something Bucky couldn’t see. “When we get home, I’ll make you something more comfortable.” He grinned, a bright, mischievous look that made Bucky’s heart stutter. “And prettier, too.”

After a moment, he put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, a light touch that nevertheless made Bucky’s skin buzz. “Here we go,” Tony said. “Try to keep still.”

Bucky chewed on his lip and braced for the pain, a tension in his neck and back and legs, but he focused on keeping his arms and shoulders limp. The buzz of Tony’s touch suddenly became a prickling, uncomfortable in its intensity, but not quite painful yet.

The anticipation stretched until Bucky began to wish it would hit him, already, and get it over with. Tony dropped his hands and said, “That should do the trick.”

“What?”

“Can you move it?”

Bucky lifted his hands without thinking before he realized: he had lifted  _ both _ of them. He looked down at them in wonder. The metal one had no feeling, but it moved smoothly and easily. “Tony... Tony, this is--”

“Yep,” Tony said, waving off whatever Bucky was about to say. “No time for all that now; we need to get some of this other stuff working before anyone finds us.” He went back to the piled stash, walking along its length and examining everything.

It was fascinating to watch him work; the soft murmur of his voice punctuated with soft hums of approval, sighs of disappointment. His hands as they touched everything, delicate fingers that belied the strength Bucky knew they had. Every so often he would pick something up and talk to it, then set it aside.

Bucky didn’t know what any of those things were, and he didn’t try to touch them. He kept moving his arm, fascinated -- he couldn’t feel anything of it, so he didn’t think he could handle anything delicate with it. The rock he picked up crumbled in his grip only an instant after he decided to squeeze it. It was stronger than his natural arm.

Tony looked up at the sound. “You think you’re getting a feel for it?”

“Maybe,” Bucky hedged. “I hope so.”

“I hope so, too,” Tony said. He pointed at one of the devices, which had a small glass window in it that was displaying some kind of information -- a jagged line of light that meant nothing at all to Bucky. “Sue’s graph here says we’re about to have company.”

Even as Tony spoke, that jagged line pulsed upward, and up again, and then Bucky heard the footsteps in the tunnel corridor. Tony started emptying his backpack of the explosives they’d hoped to plant in Hydra’s camp, and then began refilling it with the smaller devices. The ones that wouldn’t fit, he turned off; Bucky wasn’t sure if Tony was able to de-power them or if he was just hoping they would look like the junk they had been an hour or so earlier.

When the door burst open, Bucky was ready, a knife in his flesh hand and the metal hand curled into a fist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sue’s graph” is a little bit of unreliable narration. Since tech like this doesn’t really exist outside of history lessons (and among ancient tech experts), Bucky would’ve had no reason to understand the word “Seismograph”.


	10. Exchanging Vows

“Might’ve known we’d find you here,” sneered Brock. “Where are the other two?”

“Long gone,” Tony said. “You might as well just surrender now.”

Brock snorted, holding up a glowing light -- not a lantern, but something else -- as he peered around the room. He recoiled a little at the glow of light in Tony’s chest. “What the _fuck_ ,” he demanded, “is that?”

“See?” Tony said to Bucky conversationally. “That’s how everyone else reacts.”

“I’m not accepting _Brock_ as a model of acceptable behavior,” Bucky tossed back, and Tony’s quick grin at the banter was warming. “Seriously, Brock,” he said, “it’s not too late for you to walk away from Hydra. You could join us!” Tony made a face: _you have to be joking_.

Brock laughed, hard and harsh. “When I bring you two in, I’ll be covered in glory and rewards. He’ll make me a _clan head_. Why the hell would I throw that away?”

“Because we were _friends_ ,” Bucky pleaded. “Don’t make me do this.”

“Friends,” scoffed Brock. “We’re _Hydra_ , Winter. There’s no such thing as friends among Hydra. But I tell you what: when I take you back, you can show me what a good _friend_ you can be to me. Make it real good, and we’ll chain your Iron Man here to the forge instead of tying that pretty ass of his to a fuckbunk.”

Bucky didn’t even make a conscious decision to swing; he was standing there, seething, and then his new fist was smashing into Brock’s jaw. Bucky couldn’t feel the impact, but he could _hear_ the cracking of bone.

Brock staggered from the impact, and then hesitated a moment more in surprise, staring at Bucky’s metal arm.

Tony darted past, snatching at Bucky’s hand, and pulled him out the door. Bucky recovered his wits and followed, racing down the corridor. He pulled up sharply when he realized that Tony had stopped at the first turn. “Tony!”

Tony wasn’t looking at him, but back the way they’d come, one hand on his chest, not quite blocking the light that shone there. “Tony, what the hell are you--”

The tech room blew up, a concussive blast that made stone and dirt rain down on them from above. With an angry roar, the tunnel by the tech room collapsed. The explosives, Bucky realized. Tony hadn’t just been making room for new tech in his bag; he’d been preparing to destroy the dangerous cache rather than let it fall into Hydra’s hands.

Tony sagged against the wall, panting as if he’d run a marathon.

“Takes it out of you?” Bucky guessed.

Tony just nodded. He didn’t protest when Bucky wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him turn to limp back down the tunnel.

“Don’t suppose any of those gadgets you picked up can tell us which way to go?” Bucky asked plaintively.

They couldn’t move fast, and without Natasha’s sense of direction, they wound up having to backtrack multiple times. By the time they found their way back to the first tunnel and followed it back up into the no man’s land, night had fallen again. Tony hadn’t said a word of complaint, but he was struggling to even put one foot in front of the other, and he kept rubbing at his injured arm when he thought Bucky wasn’t paying attention. He was so brave, it made Bucky’s chest ache.

Steve had chosen his second-in-command well.

As they neared the mouth of the tunnel, the glow of even moonlight desperately welcome, Bucky held up his hand. “Shh. What do you hear?”

Tony paused in the midst of putting his shirt back on and closed his eyes to listen. “Noise,” he said after a moment, a touch of frustration leaking through. “Voices and shouting and... metal on metal? Did Hydra bring the fight to us here?” He finished struggling into his shirt. They didn’t need his mutation’s light anymore, but Bucky missed it as soon as it was gone.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky said. “I’m hearing... singing?”

It was a cool, clear night that they emerged into, moon and stars shining down with benevolent cheer. They could see the camp’s fires from a mile away, incautious beacons to any who might be nearby, far more of them than there ought to be, given their numbers. And carrying through the night air: yes, music and singing. Bucky squinted in the direction of camp and thought he could make out the shifting shadows of dancing, as well.

“Either we won,” Tony said, “or Hydra is far too gleeful about our fall.” It was half a joke, half a question.

Bucky shook his head. “Hydra victory celebrations have less singing and more torturing of prisoners,” he said, lip curling in remembered disgust. Still, they let their hands hover close to their weapons as they made their way across the dusty, rocky ground.

They were halfway there when Natasha melted out of the shadows. “Oh, good. We’re not going to have to send a search party for you.”

Tony jumped and pressed his hand to his chest. “ _Sundering_ , Natasha, don’t _do_ that.”

She smirked knowingly and linked her arms through Bucky’s and Tony’s. “It was good intel,” she told them. “Raven got ahead of me -- I think her mutation might go beyond camouflage -- and she managed to get in touch with the Shield chief, who agreed that Johann had definitely exceeded the bounds of taste and sanity. It turns out they had some Hydra spies in their ranks -- which is more tricky than I’d have thought they could be--”

“Me, too,” Bucky put in. What he knew of Hydra was mostly hammer-blows of strength and to hell with anything smacking of real strategy or forethought. The most subtle Hydra clan leader he’d known was Ophelia, and even her plans were fairly straightforward. “That’s a little worrisome,” he added.

“Not anymore,” Natasha said. “The X helped root out the spies, and then the rest of Shield came in at the last minute to save us. It was like something out of a campfire tale.”

“Did you get Johann?” Tony wanted to know.

“Yeah, he’s gone, though it was... unsettling, frankly, how much effort it took to put him down. But his new second, Arnim, he was flailing and furious because now they don’t have Johann’s secret to surviving the Sundering anymore. Which, as far as we’re concerned, is good news.”

“Thank the skies,” Bucky muttered. Johann’s uncovered visage had been the stuff of nightmares, and his uncanny strength even moreso.

“So that’s it?” Tony asked, frowning. “They’ve retreated, and we’ve got the river basin? It feels too easy.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You’re so suspicious,” she accused. “Yes, we’ll send the chemists in once we’re sure everything is secure, to make sure they didn’t poison the water, and the scouts to make sure they haven’t laid traps. But the land is ours. The Howlers and the Guardians are going to stick around to help us secure it, in exchange for some favors.”

“Are you sure that--”

“Tony,” Natasha interrupted. “It’s okay. Come talk to Steve. He’s already working on the plans. But you’ve been awake for what, two days straight, now?”

“More like three,” Tony admitted. Bucky cringed inwardly -- how much of that was his fault?

“You need to come have a celebratory drink with us,” Natasha said, “and then get some sleep. You’ve earned it. You might even have time for your honeymoon, now.”

Bucky tried not to feel Tony flinching away from him at the suggestion. “Show us where Steve is,” he said, before Tony could explain to Natasha that their marriage was a sham. It would be humiliating enough, when it became official; he didn’t want to spend the entire celebration and march home ducking the stares and mocking -- or worse, the sympathy.

“Last I saw him, he was with the wounded, shaking hands and... doing his thing. You know how he is.”

Bucky knew, even though they’d both been green fighters when they’d been separated. He’d known Steve would be the kind of leader who would make sure his people were fed before he ate, that they were taken care of before he rested. Tony nodded knowingly, too. “All the more reason we see him, then,” Tony put in. “Between us both, we might be able to get him to sit down and eat something.”

“Sure,” Natasha agreed, walking backward so she could grin at them, “but then what do you do about--” Her eyes widened in shock. “Get down!” She dove, catching them both around the waist and pushing them to the ground.

A crackle of blue light split the air where they’d been. Someone screamed, and then a chorus of voices raised in horrified clamor before quickly being stifled.

Bucky scrambled to his feet and turned to see Brock -- how the hell was he even _alive_? -- fifty meters away. His face was a ruin of blood and mutilated flesh, a jagged slice running diagonally from hairline to chin; he’d tied some kind of cloth over his left eye to hide that horror.  His arms were scraped raw and his pants shredded to reveal legs in much the same state. And he was carrying a weapon like nothing Bucky had ever seen before.

“Thought you’d finished me off, didn’t you?” Brock bellowed. He shook the weapon and it made a low whine, slowly but steadily climbing in pitch. “Thought you’d killed me?”

“Brock, don’t,” Bucky shouted. “It’s _over_!”

Brock laughed, a sound that was more than slightly mad. “Over?” he demanded. “Oh, Winter, it’s only _beginning_.” He shook the weapon again and aimed it at Bucky. “I’m harder to kill than that. But you’re gonna pay for my ruined eye, an’ my jaw, an’ all these scars I’m gonna have. You’re gonna pay, you an’ your loverboy, too.”

Behind him, the camp had gone suspiciously quiet. _Keep him talking_ , Bucky thought wildly. If he could just keep Brock talking, Steve would have the spies and scouts already circling, slow and careful, ready to jump him from behind. “How do you plan to do that?” he asked. “Just shooting us? Doesn’t seem like we’d suffer that long.”

“That’s true,” Brock said. “An’ you _oughta_ suffer. You were _one of us_ , and you threw it away. For what? A piece of ass?”

“I didn’t throw anything away!” Bucky shouted back. “Hydra stole my life from me and then threw me to the Avengers like a battered old toy!”

“Fuck that. You were dying when I found you!” Brock retorted. “I _gave your life back_ to you! If anyone, you should belong to _me_!”

“No,” Tony said, climbing to his feet.

 _Tony, no. Stop that, get down!_ In the shadows, Bucky could see movement, but it was all too far away to do any good if Brock shot that terrifying weapon.

Tony ignored Bucky’s frantic mental demands. He faced Brock squarely. “Bucky’s life belongs to him, and him alone.”

“Aw, look at that, Winter,” Brock cooed sarcastically. “Is it true love?”

The barb hit too close to home. “Shut up, Brock.”

“I think I’m going to shoot your little boytoy,” Brock said, “and then cut off his head and hang it on the wall by my bunk, so you can see it when I’m fucking you.”

“You son of a bitch,” Tony snarled. He reached for his hip, but Brock was faster. The muzzle of the strange gun came up. Raven appeared out of the night air, a wicked knife already upraised in her fist, but Brock was already squeezing the trigger.

“No!” Bucky pushed Tony out of its path, and searing pain shot through him--

_black_

 


	11. Honeymoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the smut-averse: there is some smut here, shortly after the third scene break; if you stop reading when they start getting frisky, you will not miss anything of importance.

The runners had gone ahead with the news, because that was how things were done, even when Tony felt too numb with grief and shock to function properly. By the time the Avengers returned to the main compound, most of the tribe was gathered in the big yard, ready to cheer their heroes home... but a small knot of mourners was already gathered by the infirmary, Cassie’s parents, Richard’s sister, and... Harley, with his little sister, Rebecca.

Harley stood as straight and tall as his years allowed, though his eyes were puffy and red. He clearly felt responsible for holding up his sister rather than giving in to his own feelings. The thought made Tony’s stomach churn uneasily. Harley wasn’t even ten yet. He was a child, far too young to have to be anything more.

Tony didn’t feel like celebrating anyway. He caught Steve’s eye and jerked his head. When Steve nodded back in understanding, Tony veered away from the main body of Avengers and their allies, and went to the little group by the infirmary.

As soon as Harley saw Tony’s face, his own crumpled and he threw himself into Tony’s ready arms. “Why?” he sobbed into Tony’s chest. “Mama wasn’t even a warrior!”

Tony smoothed his hand over Harley’s tousled hair. “There wasn’t even a fight happening at the time,” he sighed. “It should never have happened. I’m sorry, kiddo.”

Rebecca wrapped herself around Tony’s leg, wailing unabashedly, and Tony put his other hand on the girl’s head and kept the children’s faces turned into his body as the grim procession of stretchers marched into the infirmary: Richard. Maya. Cassie. He made himself watch as they carried Bucky in. After the stretchers came the walking wounded, and Tony watched them go by as well.

When the wounded had passed, Tony picked up Rebecca and put his arm around Harley’s shoulders. “Come on. You guys are staying with me tonight.” They could use the company, Tony thought. All three of them.

***

Rebecca cried until she fell asleep on Tony’s chest between one hitched breath and the next. He didn’t think she was even old enough to fully understand what had happened, but she knew her mother wasn’t there, and she knew that her brother was very upset, which was enough for her.

Harley was both harder and easier.

Tony settled for making sure Harley had some broth, and then cajoling him into sleeping (or at least lying down) on a cot with Rebecca -- for her sake, of course. Harley insisted that he wasn’t going to sleep, but Tony just nodded and told him that sleepless rest was better than sleepless pacing, at least.

An hour later, Harley dropped off, as well. It was a relief and a curse all at once. Without the kids to care for, Tony had nothing to do but lie on his bed and stare at the moonlight as it crawled across the wall, and think about Bucky.

Why. Why had Bucky leapt in front of him like that? That instant had been replaying in Tony’s head ever since it had happened, a near-constant barrage of images in which Tony desperately tried to find a way, _any_ way, to keep it from happening.

 _He was staring down the barrel of the weapon, knowing_ exactly _what it could do because he’d woken it only a few hours before, woken it and given it enough charge to feel its purpose. There was no way he could bring his pistol to bear in time, but he wouldn’t be an Avenger if he didn’t_ try. _He fell, and Bucky was standing in his place, hand still outstretched from the act of pushing Tony away. The air sizzled and filled with that searing blue light--_

“Tony? Tony, wake up.”

Tony jolted upright to find the room flooded with the pinkish light of dawn. When had he fallen asleep?

“Tony?” Harley was bending over him, his round face worried. Behind him, Rebecca was sprawled sideways across the cot, still sound asleep.

Let her rest, while she was able. “What is it?” Tony asked, trying to keep his voice low. “Are you okay?”

Harley shrugged. “I guess. Cap sent a runner. Said to tell you when you woke up, but I thought you would want to know right away. Maybe I should’ve let you sleep, though, you’re looking kind of--”

“Focus, Harley,” Tony interrupted. “What did he say?”

Harley’s eyes were big in the dim light. “He said Bucky’s awake. And asking for you.”

***

The healer on duty said something as Tony brushed past, but Tony wasn’t paying attention. Every thought, every bit of himself, was focused on Bucky, on getting to Bucky as fast as he could. How could Bucky be awake so soon?

He would have been dead, like Maya, if the weapon’s blast had caught his body instead of the metal arm. Even with that mercy, he’d barely been breathing. And the journey home, even on a stretcher, couldn’t have done him any good. Tony hadn’t expected him to wake up for _days_ , and had been trying not to think about the likelihood of him never waking again.

Peggy was standing guard in the hall where the infirmary patients were housed. She greeted Tony with a smile that was warm, if tired. “We wondered when you would make an appearance. I’m surprised you weren’t here all night.”

“I had Maya’s kids,” he said. “I thought that would be more useful than hovering here.”

Peggy’s smile fell away. “Oh, I see. Yes, well done.”

Tony nodded toward the door. “Steve’s in there? He didn’t wake up alone, or--”

“Steve’s in there,” Peggy agreed. “But I’m sure he’ll cede his chair to you. Even if I have to drag him out of it.” She pushed open the door and gestured Tony ahead of her.

Steve was sitting in a chair by the bed. He looked up as Tony came in. “Damn,” he sighed. “I told the kid not to wake you up.”

Tony ignored him. All he could see was Bucky, lying in the bed and looking pale and exhausted but _alive_ and _whole_ , aside from the mechanical arm, of course. That had been reduced to a handful of scraps that seemed to have been permanently fused into the stump of his arm. But those perfect eyes were open and staring right back at him, round and rapidly filling with tears.

“You’re okay,” Bucky whispered. “They weren’t just humoring me.”

“Since when have I ever _humored_ you?” Steve complained.

Bucky ignored him, as seemingly unable as Tony to look away. “Go away, Steve.”

“Yes, darling,” Peggy agreed. “You need rest, and these two need to talk.”

Steve set his jaw, obviously intending to argue, but Peggy hooked her arm through his and drew him out of the room, already suggesting people they should look in on and plans that should be made. The door closed behind them with a rather pointed _click_.

“I love you,” Tony blurted.

Bucky stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” Tony added. “I just... I was so certain that I was going to lose you when this was done, and then I spent another day thinking I was going to _really_ lose you, and I would never have told you. And it’s not fair of me, I know, I’m sorry, because you deserve so much--”

“I deserve,” Bucky overrode him firmly, “to make my own choices, Tony.”

That was true, and Tony was an ass. He winced and nodded, and sat in the chair Steve had vacated. “Yes. Of course you do. Whatever you want, you’ve more than earned. Not that you have to earn the right to make your own decisions, of course, that’s--”

Bucky sighed. “Tony, hush.” He reached out, groping, until he found Tony’s hand. “I’ve been trying to tell you that I love you, too.”

Tony shook his head. “You didn’t choose this, you don’t have to--”

“Why do you do that?” Bucky demanded. “I thought you were making an excuse of it because you didn’t want me, but... Just because I didn’t get any choice in the wedding doesn’t mean I’m unhappy with the outcome.”

Tony could only stare, trying to believe it. That he could have this.

“I woke up,” Bucky said, thumb brushing across the back of Tony’s hand, “and Steve was here, and Peggy, but I didn’t see you. And I thought... either you didn’t care, or I wasn’t fast enough. If this was a storytale, I’d be bound to say something noble, that I hoped it was the first, because the second would mean you were dead. But this isn’t a story, and I’m selfish. I didn’t want _either_ of them, and I couldn’t pick. I was... Steve’s probably going to tell you, later, how upset I was.”

“No,” Tony said quickly. “No, I was-- Harley and Rebecca, they needed someone.”

Bucky frowned. “Maya’s kids?”

“She’s the one Brock got, first, when he missed us.”

“Sundered bastard,” Bucky cursed. “Tell me he’s dead now.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “You fell, and the weapon failed. He ran, but in the end, Raven got him.”

“Good.” Bucky kept chewing on his lip for a moment, looking down at their hands, and then glanced up at Tony through his eyelashes. “Can we keep them?”

The breath left Tony’s body all at once, and he had to fight to draw it back in. The man he loved _and_ a family. It felt wrong to benefit from Maya’s death, but... the kids had to go to someone. “You... really want that? To stay with me?”

Bucky tugged on Tony’s hand, and though it had no strength behind it at all, Tony let Bucky pull him closer, and then closer still. “Come on, husband,” Bucky said, still pulling. “Come to bed.”

“You know this isn’t our bed, right?” Tony asked, but he obligingly climbed into the bed and let Bucky curl around him like a cat.

“Mm,” Bucky agreed. “But the healers won’t let me leave yet, and I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’ve had some more sleep and stop saying crazy things.”

Tony protested, but Bucky just snuggled closer and dozed off again. Tony could feel his own lingering exhaustion tugging at his eyelids, amplified by Bucky’s warmth, the weight of Bucky’s leg over his, the soft puff of Bucky’s breath against his neck. Another little nap wouldn’t be so terrible, would it?

***

Bucky woke slowly, warm and content in a way he’d never felt before. They had shifted in their sleep on the narrow infirmary bed until Bucky was sprawled half on top of Tony, head pillowed in the hollow of Tony’s shoulder, arm and one leg draped completely across Tony’s body.

It was comfortable, and Bucky was disinclined to move.

The softest tap sounded on the door before it opened to show Helen. She glanced at Tony, still sound asleep, and smiled. “Good, he’s needed rest,” she said softly.

Bucky nodded. “Doing my best,” he promised, keeping his own voice low so as not to disturb his husband.

“I can see that,” she chuckled. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he said. “Stump still aches a little.”

She nodded. “The force that hit the prosthetic arm was... considerable. You’ve probably got some deep bruising from the impact.”

“Okay,” Bucky said, because what else could he say to that? “What about the stuff that got stuck in me?”

“I don’t think that’s a result of the weapon’s blast,” Helen said. “We started to remove them while you were out, but they have ligament and tendon attachments like real muscle and bone. It’ll have to wait until Tony’s up to confirm, but I think the arm was... merging with you.” She made an exasperated face. “We still don’t know the full extent of his mutation’s capabilities, but that seems the most logical explanation. You didn’t feel anything from the attack?”

Bucky shook his head slowly. “Just the shock of it, and the pain where it was attached.”

“Well, I suppose you’re lucky it hadn’t started developing nerve relays, then,” Helen said. She made a note on her clipboard, and nodded. “Don’t wake Tony up, but I’ve done all I can for you here. When you’re both up, you can go home and finish recovering there. Make sure to get plenty of rest and keep eating; your weight is still much lower than I’d like.”

“Yes ma’am,” Bucky agreed. Helen smiled at him again, and left, closing the door carefully behind her.

“She’s right,” Tony muttered. “‘Bout it merging with you.”

Bucky startled. “Thought you were sleeping!”

“Was,” Tony said. “Heard my name. Was a little awake before that, but that brought me the rest of the way out.” Tony yawned and stretched, and Bucky was suddenly very aware of the shape of Tony’s erection under his thigh.

“Well, good morning,” he murmured. He shifted, pressing against Tony’s length and feeling his own blood begin to heat.

Tony’s breath caught. “We’re in the _infirmary_ ,” he pointed out.

“And Helen just finished looking in on me. No one will come in again for at least an hour or two. Especially since they think you’re asleep.” Bucky nipped at the line of Tony’s jaw. “But I’ll stop if you--”

“No,” Tony gasped. “Oh, Sundering, don’t stop.”

Bucky hummed happily and pushed at Tony’s shirt until he could get to the skin underneath. The healers weren’t likely to come in soon, but there was no point in drawing it out and increasing that chance.

Bucky licked at Tony’s skin, salty and metallic, and dropped a gentle kiss over his sternum, silent gratitude for the light that Bucky knew was hidden behind its usual wrap. “Shh,” he cautioned. “If we make too much noise, they’ll come to check on us.”

“Can’t have that,” Tony whispered. He pushed up on one elbow and pulled Bucky to him for a kiss, lingering and sweet.

Bucky couldn’t prop himself up and touch Tony the way he wanted to, so he wriggled out of his clothes and wormed his way under Tony, stretching out on his back and pulling Tony over him. “Come and love me, husband,” he breathed. “Show me what you need, what you want.”

Tony grunted as if the words had punched the reaction out of him, and climbed on top of Bucky for another kiss, deeper, tasting every corner of Bucky’s mouth. He nuzzled at Bucky’s neck as he stripped out of the rest of his clothes, letting them fall carelessly to the floor.

Bucky tipped his head, giving Tony easier access to his throat. “What is it that you want?” he asked softly. “Tell me.”

Tony whimpered a little. “I want everything,” he said on a helpless laugh. “I want...”

Tony straddled Bucky’s thigh and rocked them together, hot smooth skin sliding until Bucky had to bite his lip to keep from crying out with how _good_ it felt, their cocks hard and leaking as they rubbed together.

Tony wrapped a hand around them, holding them together. “Come on, honey, help me out here,” he nudged, and Bucky obeyed without thinking. It took both their hands together to wrap fully around them, but then it was a tight, warm fit that made Bucky moan.

Tony kissed Bucky at that, hard and sloppy. “Shhh,” he reminded Bucky with a mischievous smirk. He punctuated that by rolling his hips, making his cock fuck into their clasped hands, the slide delicious.

Bucky followed Tony’s lead, then, rocking up into his and Tony’s grasp, a slick of precome making the motion easier and better. “Tony,” he whimpered. “Oh, oh _Tony_...”

“I’ve got you,” Tony promised. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Never going to let you go, I promise.”

Bucky surged up to kiss Tony then, a promise shared. Another roll of hips and slide of hands and Bucky was coming, clenching his teeth until his jaw ached to avoid shouting.

Tony whined softly between his teeth as his hand moved faster, and faster still, hips vibrating with the intensity of his need.

Bucky’s spent cock was painful with oversensitivity, and he pulled out of Tony’s grip. He batted Tony’s hand away and took over, stroking Tony’s cock in a firm grip. Tony went boneless for an instant, and then rigid all over.

“That’s it, Tony,” Bucky crooned, lifting his head to cover Tony’s throat with kisses and sharp little nips. “Come for me, my husband, my love. Come for me now.”

A moan leaked from Tony’s lips and he slammed into Bucky’s grip once, and twice, and then came, shuddering and gasping as his come painted Bucky’s stomach and chest with thick white ropes.

Tony collapsed onto Bucky, heedless of the mess, panting for air. “Next time,” he said into Bucky’s neck, hoarse, “next time we do this somewhere we’re allowed to make noise.”

Bucky laughed softly and nuzzled at Tony’s hair. “Agreed.”

 


	12. Happily Ever After

_One year later_

Tony hefted his hammer and sized up the target. The light shining from his link seemed to make it easier to spot weak points and stress lines and places where the protection was likely to be thinnest. His full strength was likely to cause a rebound before the metal could absorb all of his momentum, but a little _less_ than full -- yes, and _that_ point, there--

He struck, hips twisting as he followed through, and the armor’s metal shattered with a resounding _crack!_

If there had been a person inside it, they would be dying of a crushed sternum now. Tony stepped back and waited, rubbing at the skin around his link. Bucky had talked him into letting it go uncovered a few months ago, and he was still getting used to it. But he’d never realized before just how much _more_ he could see by its light.

Miles stared in shocked disbelief even as Kamala rushed forward, reaching just a little further than a human body should be able to reach, and caught the pieces before they could hit the ground. “I don’t understand!” she wailed.

“No metal is as flexible as you,” Tony told her, as kindly as he knew how. “Your idea for the armor is sound, but you’re going to have to find a way to make it much more flexible than even small plates of metal. The old world already tried that, and then exceeded it. He tapped her on the side of the head. “You’re almost there, I can taste it. When you do, I’ll hang up my hammer and let you run the smithy.”

“Really?” She looked up at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

Tony snorted and pulled her down -- _down!_ And how had she grown so much in one short year? -- to kiss the top of her head. “No. I’m going to be here to harangue you forever.”

“Tony!” she protested, but she was smiling, which was better than the hangdog look she’d had before. Failure was inevitable. Best she learn quickly not to take it too much to heart.

“Now, apprentice, I believe you have some mundane, boring, apprentice-type work to do before you’re dismissed, hm?” He watched fondly as Kamala huffed and sighed and slumped off to clean up her station and help Miles with the evening’s shutdown chores.

“Tony!” Harley sprinted into the shop at full speed. Tony didn’t feel alarmed; Harley did _everything_ at top speed these days. “Bucky says you’re not allowed to work late today, ‘cause Shield was sighted and will be here in time for late mess. An’ also it’s--”

“Our anniversary. I remember,” Tony said. “Did he really think I’d forget?”

Harley waggled his hand. “If you’d gone down to the cave, maybe.”

“I keep telling you kids, there is no cave,” Tony told Harley pointedly. There wasn’t a cave. There was, however, a carefully-constructed bunker that contained all the pre-Sundering tech the Avengers had been able to scrounge from Hydra’s collapsed storeroom, and more besides. Harley knew about the bunker, but he also knew he wasn’t supposed to mention it in public. Too much of that tech was too dangerous for anyone to know it even existed, much less that the Avengers had a technician in their ranks who could repair any of it (and two more up-and-coming, if Kamala’s and Harley’s respective studies continued to go well).

Harley ducked his head, abashed, and Tony ruffled his hair. “Go on, tell Bucky that I’ll be on time for dinner. And then you and your sister get washed up.”

Harley let out a groan that sounded more obligatory than heartfelt, and sprinted back the way he’d come. Tony watched him go, fond, and then retrieved his gift for Bucky from its hiding place in the scrap metal heap.

“Is it going to work?” Kamala asked pensively.

“Of course it’s going to work,” Tony said. “I designed it. Don’t you have things to do?”

“Nothing as interesting as winding you up,” she threw back at him, grinning.

“Brat,” Tony said without heat. “Keep it up. I’ll bust you back to sweeping out the forge.”

Kamala laughed, secure in the knowledge that Tony would do no such thing to his most promising apprentice.

By the time he made it to the mess hall, he found his family in their usual seats near the front of the room, reserved for family of the Council and important guests. Bucky and Tony were both Council members, but chose to sit at the family table with Harley and Rebecca, who had been unwilling to let them out of her sight for months after Maya’s death.

“You thought I’d forget,” Tony said. “I shouldn’t even give you your present.” He laid the package on the table in front of Bucky as he slid onto the bench, and then pouted until Bucky leaned in to kiss him.

“Gross,” Harley opined.

“Give it five years or so,” Tony told him. “You might change your mind.”

“It’s always going to be gross watching you two suck face, no matter what,” Harley said.

Tony snorted and pretended to ignore Harley, turning toward Bucky instead. “Open your present.”

“Bossy,” Bucky complained mildly, but he began untying the leather strips that held it closed. “Is it a rifle? Because I’ve been working with Clint on some...” He trailed off as he flipped the oilcloth out of the way to reveal the shining metal underneath. “Tony,” he whispered.

“Happy anniversary,” Tony said, all trace of teasing and banter gone. “I love you.”

“Is it... Will it... _work_?” Bucky touched the gleaming metal of the artificial arm with one fingertip, tentative, almost as if he thought it might act without him.

“Why does everyone ask me that?” Tony complained. “Yes, it’ll work. I may have dismantled and cannibalized about six Special Projects to make sure I had all the right parts.”

Bucky stared at him, horrified. “Tony! You can’t just--”

“Relax, I talked to Steve first. He agreed that you having an arm was much more useful than any of that other stuff. Promise. You can ask him.”

“You,” Bucky said disbelievingly, “talked to Steve. Before starting a project.”

“It may not have _strictly_ been _before_ I started,” Tony admitted, “but it was before I _finished_ , and I think that’s the important thing. Do you like it, or not?”

“I love it,” Bucky said. “Of course I do. You going to help me put it on?”

Tony took a breath, and forced himself not to look around the room. This was why he’d given the arm to Bucky at dinner, after all, instead of this morning before they’d left their rooms, or waiting for tonight. He was done hiding his mutation, even if he couldn’t quite take joy in it yet. He carefully lifted the arm to Bucky’s shoulder, helping him settle it into a comfortable position, and then the link flared and he _reached_...

Tony opened eyes he hadn’t realized he had closed, and Bucky was looking down at the hand, opening and closing slowly under the table.

“I think I can feel it, a little bit,” Bucky whispered. He looked up at Tony. “Am I imagining that?”

Tony shrugged, smiling. “Probably not. Some of the connections in the arm are similar to actual nerves. I don’t know that it will ever be as strong or accurate as the real one, but--”

Bucky brushed metal knuckles down the side of Tony’s face. “I can feel,” he said again, with all the wonder of a child.

Tony finally relaxed, just a little. “Happy anniversary,” he repeated.

“The happiest,” Bucky agreed, and despite Harley and Rebecca’s complaints, kissed Tony again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worldbuilding Notes:
> 
> The Sundering took place around 250 years ago. Its history is poorly documented, but its purpose was (purportedly) to unlock the potential of human DNA; its disastrous result is that nearly every living thing has been mutated to some degree or other, especially humans. It was focused on large population centers, and what were once cities are now (still) dangerous to approach, as the cloud of whatever it is that causes the Sundering (an airborne viral agent? nanobots? a biochemical toxin?) still hovers over those places, and exposure to it will cause rapid-onset DNA scrambling and violent mutation, lethal in some 70-90% of cases. (The rule at hand is that blue skies are safest; there are a host of children’s stories and rhymes for teaching how to tell when a cloud is benign or when it’s a free-floating agent of the Sundering.)
> 
> Animal populations have undergone rapid evolution to deal with it, and most species have settled into new niches where their mutations are compatible or benignly incompatible, but humans, having an aversion to letting natural selection do its thing, still carry a lot of harmful mutations. 
> 
> Proper heredity no longer functions as we know it. There’s no way to predict what sort of mutation a child will be born with -- if the child survives that long. Stillbirths and infant mortality are particularly high, and most tribes have developed rules (half science and half superstitious ritual) to increase the chances of a child’s survival. At best, some tribes have ways of identifying when mutations will combine virulently to produce near-Sundering-level results; each tribe deals with those combinations in its own ways (e.g., forbidding the union, requiring that one or both prospective parents be sterilized, or -- in a few cases, such as the X -- allowing the prospective parents to simply take their chances.)
> 
> Immediately post-Sundering, they gathered into family clans, and then over a couple of generations organized into tribes. Most tribes are small, maybe 200-300 people, with ~10-15% dedicated leadership/warriors, 5-10% support personnel (medical, weapon/armorcraft, etc), and the remaining 75-85% are on daily life (food production, crafts) though most are trained in self-defense, because intertribal raiding is a real danger.
> 
> (Hydra is VERY big, over 1000 members, and heavily slanted toward warriorclass at around 40%. They do this by treating their remaining population like slaves.)
> 
> Tribes “own” territories that range from 50-200 miles square (depending on resource density more than populations) that support farms, hunting preserves, clean water sources, etc. The boundaries are fuzzy, especially if it’s a boundary between tribes (vs. a boundary between the tribe and unclaimed territory or a Sundered area). Tribes frequently fight over territory and resources, but only rarely strike into each others’ centers. It’s perfectly common for two tribes to meet in battle one day and then to hold a Market/trade fair the next.
> 
> Each tribe has its own internal government; common systems include consensus (Four, Guardians), majority rule (X, Howlers), representative council (Avengers), and pseudo-military structure (Shield). Dictatorships are rare but not unheard-of (Hydra).
> 
> Tech level is generally reduced to frontier horse-and-carriage era; anything that requires fine metalwork or machines in particular is very hard to come by. Large livestock (horses, cattle, etc) are mostly too expensive to keep, though sheep and pigs are sometimes maintained by tribes with grassland or woods respectively. Education is (usually) valued, however, and science and engineering are somewhat more advanced than the tech level suggests, though still limited by precision capabilities and materials.
> 
> Tribes often hold Markets -- these are Neutral territory by common consensus (codified in the Covenants) where neither tribal nor personal fighting is permitted. Markets exist to allow resource exchange, as well as inter-tribal socialization.
> 
> A person who leaves their home to marry is called a bride (not a gendered term, but it does carry very mild implications of subservience). Every tribe has its own rules about what marriages are permitted and how they are formed, but most restrictions are due to mutation compatibility rather than orientation. Because tribes are so small, genetic diversity is an issue, so inter-tribal marriage is encouraged (compatible mutations allowing), and alliances between tribes are often sealed with one or more marriages. (Inter-tribal marriages are almost exclusively heterosexual in nature because the whole purpose is to provide children.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Brideprice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051543) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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